After Round 1 and 2 games in Round 2 - it is clear that some big name players under pressure looks pretty ordinary and some new ones is being coming to the fore.
Lets consider some of the teams and then look at individual players,
* Italy gave the Welsh uphill in Round 1 and then came the Round 2 match against Ireland. It is clear that although Italy must get a lot of credit for their performance against Wales - the real issue is that Wales is under-performing as a team as is evidenced by the run-away victory of the Irish. Based on performances against Ireland - it looks to me like Wales and Scotland thus far has been on par insofar as performances are concerned. Wonder - which one of the two will win in their game against each other?
* England did very well against the French and lost by a whisker. The performance of England against Scotland shows some real English strength - but they seem to be less effective than if a person compare their performance against the Scots with the one of Ireland.
* A real pointer will be the French - Italy game today. I suspect the French will win by relevant ease - but the French are always unpredictable and Italy often enough shows a tendency not to repeat two good games in succession. For the French to indicate a real chance of winning the series they will have to win by a wide margin.
Now for individual players. I think that George North was extremely disappointing. He seems to have a ball handling problem of major proportions. I always was a big admirer of Halfpenny - but yesterday he looked very ordinary. I also thought that Hibbard and Roberts did not show much at all under pressure.
Mike Brown, Billy Vunipola and Robshaw seem to be some of the better players of England and moved up in my estimation. On the other hand Farrell was bog ordinary in both games played. Sexton had a cracker yesterday and s had O'Connell.
Now lets look at it from a different angle. SA was lucky in the EOYT last year. We played Wales and won by a whisker - could have lost, but for a mistake made by the ref. We then played the under-par Scots and the only real victory of substance in that tour was against the French. What would have happened if we played England and Ireland - and not Scotland and Wales - would have been more of an indicator of the strength of the Springbok team.
We were all surprised by the performance the Irish put up against the All Blacks - yet that surprise probably stem from an under-evaluation of the real strength of the Irish team. They really are good this year and seems to be the team on the up.
Who is going to win the 6 Nations? Present indicators point to Ireland - with France being the dark horses in this case. The crunch game will be between the Irish and the French. Whoever won that game will win the series. The chances of England winning is much smaller. Even if they beat Ireland - they would have serious difficulties to overcome the point differences issue - where at present Ireland has a huge lead.
