wales vs ireland a fantastic game to kick off the 6nats and the ol cliche a game of two halves is very appropriate here as both team were phenomenal, but ireland were the deserved winners with wales leaving their run too late.
there is massive speculation that legend brian odriscoll is playing in his very last 6nats and the irish in the opening 40 minutes played like a champion team determined to send him out a winner.
the forwards set a good platform, but it was the backs who stole the show. brian odriscolls class really shone in this game and with brilliance from zebo plus relentless pressure from sextons boot as well as the team as a whole, the irish went into the half with a 23-3 lead over wales who were simply dreadful.
the second half started out more or less the same way the 1st ended, with the irish again starting to build some unstoppable momentum, but this time the welsh fought back to put on 19 unanswered points.
biggar who blunderd a few plays in the first half look more settled in the second half, but it really was too little too late from both him and the whole team. too many errors and at times not enough urgnecy especially in the first half
my man of the match was odriscoll. very limited time with the ball in hand, but he made the most of what he did with a nice try and try assist, but it was his work defensively which he should really take a bow for.
england vs scotland was another great match, so odd for the NH to put on two great test matches instead of the usual boring snore kicking fests which they have plagued us with forever.
but hats of to eng and also to scotland for showing some of the great attacking rugby.
right from the get go england look the stronger team, consistently attacking with ball in hand and kicking only for territory or to apply pressure.
the english forwards especially their front row got through a mountain of work, ensuring that youngs and farrel had plenty of good quick ball for them to lead the backline attacks with and the english halves pairing gladly lapped it all up.
farrel is shaping up to be one of the best flyhalves around with his solid all round kicking performance and veteran like way he guides the backline, the pass he threw for parling out wide was one of the best u will see in the game, prob even better then odriscolls sleight of hand pass to zebo. he cut out 3 players and threw the ball behind it wasnt evena lineball the ball went back, to parlings who hit the ball with gas and caught it chest height, right out of the umaga text book, i was really impressed with that pass and englands all round performance.
it will be interesting to see who gatland will choose out of sexton or farrel to guide the lions backline, IMO farrels got the leg up at the moment.
scotland put in a real decent performance too, despite the one sided scoreline. hogg was not only the best on ground for scotland, but one of the best on ground period.
but scotland have a lot of work to do, their set pieces especially those around the lineouts were piss poor and not acceptable for international level. it was a complete shambles.
i was impressed with maitland though, scotland got a nice recruit with the former crusaders outside back and he already showed hes going to be a great assest, playing important roles in both tries one of which he scored. he was also very sound on defence making his tackles and putting himelf ina position to stop some solid eng attack.
all in all very good entertaing games of rugby, if this keeps up it could be one of the best 6nats ever.
Pro6,277 posts
03 Feb 2013, 01:52
#1
03 Feb 2013, 01:52#1
