Rugby – 6 nations.

France could happily stuff Wales. England could happily stuff Ireland.

And vice versa. That’s what has been so good.

Glitchery

Andy Robinson best start practising his Italian…”cucchiaio di legno”

Much as I’d love to hear the sound of choking coming from the Millennium, there’s no earthly way that they can all conspire to get rid of that kind of points differential.

England perhaps to win, but by no more than 6-10, Wales to win by a decent margin.

The French would have to absolutely run amok away from home. Their hearts weren’t in it when they were still in with a sniff of the slam, let alone after Sunday.

Super Saturday will be an excellent display of Rugby. There’s a lot of talk of ‘which French side’ will play….but I think it depends on which Welsh team turn up. If the Welsh are fired up and mentally prepared in the sense of ‘we deserve to win’ instead of handing away the victory (a la South Africa & France in the RWC) then the game will be incredible. England and Ireland both go into their game with points to prove and Scotland v Italy will be a close encounter, with every point of the low scoring game bitterly fought. It will be scrappy, but there will be the flashes of brilliance that both teams are capable of.

My 2p….

wrecker – Member
I’d just settle for someone growing a pair and sorting the scrums out.
It worked perfectly well before and was a far better contest. I used to love seeing scrums. I dread them now. I don’t think there’s any evidence of the new methods reducing injuries the possibility of anybody suing their home union for a neck injury.

Posted 2 hours ago #

FTFY
That is why scrums are depowered. Oh and TJ’s are meant to mark the offside line, but not alert the ref to it (if we are miked up)allowing the Ref to use us as a guide. (and you lot thought it was just running up and down the line with a flag)

Imagine this: TJ working as a TJ……..

morgs – Member
Imagine this: TJ working as a TJ……..

Oh no……!

Surely the hit is more dangerous now? Anyone got a good vid of an old style scrum?

France change six for Wales game

Building for next year already?

Duckman, to my uneducated view the hit seems to be the root of almost all evil in the scrum. Can we not get ride and have the old style scrums with no pudhing till the ball comes in? I dont get it.

Ioum those are just changes to the sqaud, apart from Clerc and Dupuy he could pick an unchanged side. Lets just hope Picamoles, Servat and Oeudrago dont start looks like Para will start, will be interesting to see who plays 10.

Tight shirts on fat props means they struggle to bind properly/securely.
Crooked feeds means there is little opportunity to nick one, therefore getting a penalty somehow is the best that can be hoped for.
C/T/P/E is horribly slow, and I hated it, but since neither side is supposed to push until the ball is in, and the ball shouldn’t go in until the scrum is steady, in theory it shouldn’t be the cause of all the problems.

Can we not get rid and have the old style scrums with no pushing till the ball comes in? I dont get it

Neither do I. A lot of people would like to see a return to this, but apparently the risk of broken necks is higher? I played in the front row before these huge hits came in but I fail to see how they are somehow safer.

Right, the scrum was changed to try and stop spinal injuries and also because there were a number of cases against unions because they had not been seen to do anything about it. One man can’t ref a scrum so….No change at junior level, for senior rugby ie, top amateur/pro;

Control the hit, creep forward = straight pen,no reset or warning. Once they hit, any bind above the waist. Other prop pulling you down? fix it yourself. At every level props now go down/up if they do not get an immediate advantage.We have taken away the contest and narrowed down the scrum to the initial hit and the two secs immediately after that. Free bindings would allow props to adjust. Props at senior level are streetwise enough to negate the risk of injury and be able to work their opo’s initial advantage to their own benefit.
Just my tuppence.

So in summary the hit is the problem because as you say if you loose it you go down for a reset or you get pinged for not binding? It must be harder to bind if you loose the hit?

and why the **** do refs often give free kicks which arent as good an attacking platform as a solid scrum, its a farce.

progressive binding? take the Hit away entirely?

anyway Tom Croft…show pony this is what your six should be doing:

http://oi44.tinypic.com/awrgna.jpg
http://oi40.tinypic.com/34g68i8.jpg
http://oi44.tinypic.com/ffa4oy.jpg

France’s entire back-row is a doubt ahead of the Six Nations clash with Grand Slam-chasing Wales on Saturday.
Captain Thierry Dusautoir (knee), Imanol Harinordoquy (knee) and Julien Bonnaire (elbow) are all concerns.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/17342990

Mind games? Or real? That’s a real loss to the game if any of them are out.

There’s not a huge gulf between the two sides. Anyone who believes differently is kidding themselves

Agreed – and I quite like it actually. Makes it easy to see gameplans and tactics coming to the fore, instead of who makes the fewest handling errors or gives away the least penalties like it has been at times.

Bonnaire? For the life of me I cant work out what he’s supposed to be doing cause it surely cannot be that he’s asked to just stand back and watch Dusatoir do all the work. I think France were playing two 6.5’s and they seemed to scrum just left and right but Bonnaire did sweet FA all game. Picamoles also looks more of a threat ball in hand than Harry Ordinary at the moment.

Check out this gif its great Italian player appears to be punching his team mate, Ian Evans looks most bemused.
http://prem1.hiboox.com/images/1112/diapo6847f24481a093711133f8c2c2988b31.gif

The best 6s, of which I was never one but I did play alongside one of the greatest there has ever been at schoolboy level, seemingly never do anything. Much like tighthead props, the work they do is hard to see sometimes, but they really win games.

A-A As I said,in my experience, if teams don’t get an immediate advantage, they want to try again. I played during the transition period and that was the idea,if we got a good hit, then play. If not then we will go again,thanks. I think it is the same mentality as there is no time to scrummage because the ball goes in as soon as the props come together,by the time you shift your bind the ball is at the opo 8’s feet.

TJ; won’t work, second row would fall over/not get a bind, making the props less secure, trying to give S/R a bind at the same times as dealing with their own foot position etc. C-T-P-E is a progressive engage in theory. However it has evolved into ready-aim-fire!
You are prob unaware of this, but at a decent level a ref will spend at least 5 mins with each skipper telling them exactly how they ref a game including the scrum.I set out my stall before a game, I give both front rows the cadence I will bring them together. I don’t vary this and if they can’t follow this then they will spend a lot of time walking back 10m. Not perfect, but current rules (led by SH) have made the scrum a mess and as said v difficult to police.As I said fewer offences = fewer broken rules. 😀

Nice gif aa got one of the dive from the Ireland game? still haven’t seen it

Bonnaire is **** world class then because i cant even tell what position he plays!!!

No gifs of other games i’ m afraid. I nicked them from gwlad so they only do welsh ones!!

So are you saying Bonnaire is shit and that croft is a show pony?
Do you think lydiate is better than either?

One of my great confusions with the modern game is why the attributes of a balanced back row are so rigidly attributed to particular shirt numbers, as long as you have the ball winning, ball securing and ball carrying covered – does it matter who does what?

You took your time! Wait till Zokes reads it!!!!
Bonnaire i couldnt work out what his role was, not sure he knew either. Maybe it was due to the obvious plan france had to pressure england and kick long went thoroughly tits up and France decided they had to chuck it about.
Hard to compare Croft and Lydiate, they are as different as apples and pears. Croft needs a 6.5 alongside him to flourish whereas Lydiate is a more classical 6. Both very good players both better than Bonnaire but not as good as Dusatoir

Mefty the roles dont matter as much as balance. Croft fits the england back row whereas he wouldnt fit the welsh. Englands lacks a bit of balance due to no out and out 7 whereas for wales Faletau plays more like a flanker which means we lack carriers.

I think England are playing a system I played in for many years which essentially involves using your inside centre as a third flanker – I used to oscillate between the two, albeit in the coarse end of the sport. Once you take that in account, I think they achieve decent balance. It does rely on your 10 being a complete game manager.

You could be right Mefty, for all Croft is amazing in the loose and superb in the lineout, he’s not as good at the foraging on the floor. I happen to think that Ireland are really missing BOD in this respect.

Interesting. Wales are playing Spikey as another back row player some times, IMO. Interesting versatility.

Hard to compare Croft and Lydiate, they are as different as apples and pears. Croft needs a 6.5 alongside him to flourish whereas Lydiate is a more classical 6. Both very good players both better than Bonnaire but not as good as Dusatoir

Spot on. I think robshaw is a better 6 than either though. He’s actually out of position on 7 but not doing a bad job ( and being crofts 6.5)
Lions back row of warbs, o’brian and robshaw is a mouth watering prospect IMO. 2 englishmen and an irishman 😀

warbs, o’brian and robshaw

Bit short for the tail of the lineout but would be intresting to say the least!!

Just let them have the ball. They wouldn’t keep it long!

Wales are playing Spikey as another back row player some times

Spikey and Faletau are the reasons for Wales excellent defence IMO, both tackle like flankers and slow down opposition ball. Compare that to the classic role of the 9 as sweeper or the role that Parisse, Harry Ordinary and Morgan have compared to Faletau. Faletau never drops deep to return kicks, I guess Wales assume that North and Cuthbert are capable of doing kick returns into traffic which means Wales have an extra man in the defensive line.

Although he had an outstanding game, to be fair Croft has been jogging along at a comfortable 6 out of 10 for the last season or two.

The point I was making is there is too much orthodoxy in six nations rugby – the french used to be kings at this – wings throwing in – hookers acting as scrum half – my own theory which I would love to see tried out is using blind and open side wingers in attack – I would have loved seeing Jason Robinson playing blind side winger.

Croft was one of the stand out players of the 2009 Lions, and I reckon that was one of his best days since then. He’s often at that level for Leicester, however that’s not against a full international team obviously. I don’t think you’re wrong about the inside centre, and I reckon that’s why croft is so often in the outside centre position, well, that and the fact he used to be faster than all but one Leicester winger so he’s not a bad bloke to go into the backs! Just glad to see him play that well for England, now all we need is Floody back to form.
Intersting that Martin Johnson had no idea how to play to get the individual performances like that. Lancaster must be doing something right

Croft is a very un Martin Johnson sort of a player though depending on what you want from your 6 he is either uniquely gifted or a pointless waste of space. World class lineout work, ability to defend wide out and running given space but his close in contact work is fine but he lacks the physique to do anything destructive. Played for the Lions with Wallace at 7 did he not? Wallace is a typical 6.5