No point going on about that. Ireland are a better team. They had plenty of chances to win that game but fluffed it.

If onlys!! Ha ha! If only lampards goal blah blah! I’m a TRUE England fan and yes barring a welsh miracle we should win the tournament but its not the grand slam we all craved! Who backed England at the last world cup ?? I did, each way after a very ropey start, it returned very nicely on an each way!! I didn’t think they’d win it but knew there was a bit in the tank!!

There is no doubt the home nations up their game against the English, that’s what you get when 1 team has more resources, support and is generally better. It’s just a shame England lack the ability to crush them like nz would. You can see the same across the board, cricket being a very notable example.

End of the day the home nations other than England are never going to win a world cup in rugby cricket or football and the fact England have just irks them all the more.

You French beauty 🙂

WTF?!? Two mentions of footie now!

The fans “up” their fervour for sure. As I said, it’s England that have had to up their game against Ireland in recent years. And today, yet again, they couldn’t. I know little of what the WRU and the SRU have done in recent years, but the IRFU have taken massive steps to improve the quality of the national side – player contracts, agreements with the provincial sides etc etc. To suggest that their dominance over England in the last few years (7 or 8 of the last ten meetings) is due to being more “up” for it is fallacious at best and patronising to say the least.

Not the same though is it? Ireland did the job today and a belated win from the current game doesn’t bring the same cachet.
England will ‘probably’ win the 6N but the records will show how close the tournament was.

Having been an English lad in a Welsh school during the early 70s, the French are doing me proud tonight 8) Not able to watch on TV but I’m guessing Eddie Butler may be commentating and we just happened to be at school together… 😆

Then Ireland want to be up for it more often then! Perhaps against the other four teams and its all yours!!! Patronising my arse, go on one more time. (Fool) xx

😆

Actually to be fair, you’d do well on a football thread.

Zut alors 😯

Anyway, doesn’t NZ have the same population as Wales? They have a small player pool and they don’t do too badly do they? 😆

You are right muddy dwarf!

Wish England had played with Frances intensity…

yay! allez les blancs 😀
scraping a win? we won 33% more games than anyone else!

And you did it all on your own, congratulations.

Told ya, the English team looked really underwhelmed to lift the trophy.
Good game from the French and Welsh, really enjoyed that game.

All over now till we all underperform at the WC 🙂

It’s been a great thread as ever. As for the namecalling, I’m going to forget being called a “Fool” today…but only because of who it was. 😀

Roll on the World Cup. Having England and Argentina in our pool we (Scotland) can’t even be sure of last 8 but hopefully we have the drop on the Pumas for now and we can warm up against Romania and Georgia.

The Irish should get past Italy but it could be interesting for Wales if Fiji and Samoa start well.

Looking forward to that thread in 6 months time.

Oh NZ should win it but can they avoid choking?

Where did I say Ireland were a “great team”? We only have a realistic chance of being the best team in the 6N from time to time. We notoriously underperform when expectations are high. We despair. I have no idea why. All I know is that they’re a far more professional outfit than even ten years ago.

I’ll just repeat what I said earlier: England were the best team in this 6N and they will no doubt go further in the WC than Ireland. (although, having a look at the groups, I dunno…but I refuse to get my hopes up). I just think it’s unfair to say that we’re more “up” for it when it’s England and that’s why we’ve won 7 of the last 10 encounters. If England fans feel they need to say that to make themselves feel better, then fair enough. I guess the fact that it winds other fans up is all part of the fun.

EDIT: tbh, the competition’s over now and the thread’s run its course. Im just going to enjoy our one excellent performance and not argue about it anymore.