This weekend, we saw probably the best opening round in the history of the Six Nations, with great games, upsets and the fact that my pre tournament predictions and fantasy team has been smashed all over, much to the delight of you lot.
The opening game saw Wales host Ireland and it was the epitome of a game of two halves. Ireland played some great fluid rugby to begin with and it was clear from the off that they would be exploiting the wings, with Zebo and Gilroy getting a lot of running space early on. It was Zebo who crossed first, with a move straight from the training ground and great hands from O'Driscoll allowing him to sneak in the corner. Rory Best was his usual self turning over a lot of ball and when he charged down Biggar and broke away, patient build up let Cian Healy crash over. The talking point of the try was another fine piece of skill by Zebo which is sure to make the archives on RugbyDump. Warren Gatland would have been impressed with Sexton who had a great game with his positional kicking and also the Irish backrow who hit anything in a Welsh shirt.
Wales finally looked to have some attacking threat late on in the first half but the visitors did well to go into the changing rooms without conceding. Ireland started the second half looking to put the game to bed early and another fluid attack and patient play saw talisman O'Driscoll score, but this only seem to revive the Welsh. Cuthbert went over after a fine move and a yellow card for Best, who had a faultless game before this, saw Wales capitalise and Halfpenny scored. Craig Mitchell (who I'm sure no-one has in their fantasy team) then burrowed over, but the Irish defence was dogged and foiled the Welsh attack time and time again. The scoreline finished 30-22 in Ireland's favour and they can thank O'Driscoll who played like days of old and an Irish backrow who ran hard, tackled hard and turned a lot of ball over.
The Auld Enemy then faced each other at Twickenham, and England set the tournament benchmark with a clinical 38-18 victory. Scotland drew first blood, Stuart Hogg gliding through the white defence with a brilliant counter-attack before Scotland, for once, showed patient play allowing Kiwi-Scot Mailtand to score on his debut. This only managed to kickstart England though and Morgan and Wood started to carry well and exploit big gaps in the Scotland defence. Farrell kept his team in it with the tee but time and again England were let down by handling errors which Scotland were keen to counter-attack from. A mixture of good English composure and poor Scotland line speed let Ashton score before exactly the same thing happened in the second half to allow Twelvetrees to score another debutant try.
Scotland's discipline continued to let them down and Farrell duly punished them through boot and hand. A turnover close to the Scottish line let the young fly-half float a beautiful long pass over to Parling for him to cross the line, before Scotland turned over an attack and hacked the ball down the pitch for Hogg to deservedly score. Beattie then looked to have broken away to set up a tight finish but he knocked on and replacement Danny Care scored at the death. Stuart Lancaster will have been very happy with the hunger to attack that England showed and the performance of his backrow, in particular, captain Robshaw. He has a decision to make now that Tuilagi is fit but personally, there is no need to change his starting XV for the trip to Ireland. Scotland can also take positives with good performances from Hogg, Beattie and Grant.
On Sunday, a clinical Italian side taught the schizophrenic French a lesson in composure and completely blew the Six Nations wide open. Unsurprisingly, it was Parisse who scored first after backing up fly-half Orquera's break before his opposite number Picamoles crashed over to open France's account. Benjamin Fall then added a French second after a great break from Huget who continued to look dangerous all game. The French made countless breaks all day but kept failing to hold onto the last offload whereas the Italian's handling was poor apart from their offloading game.
It was a cheeky little offload from Osquera that put Castrogiovanni over for his 12th international try before Burton came on and dropped a goal. After that, French heads dropped and not for the first time, they looked to run out of inspiration and they just didn't care. Their set peices were poor all game and even Michalak couldn't spark any life into the blue centres. Italy will be ecstatic with their performance and hope they can take it to Murrayfield next week as well as the form of Osquera, a fly-half in which Italy finally look comfortable with. Final score 23-18.
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