Six Nations . . .

Thank God we have some real rugby starting this weekend!

The Six Nations kicks off on Saturday when Wales take on Ireland at the Millennium Stadium and England play Scotland in the Calcutta Cup later in the day at Twickenham. Italy and France begin their campaigns on Sunday when Italy host France.

As much as I'd love to see Wales defend their title, they appear to have gone backwards recently and were nowhere nearly as impressive as France or England during the November tours. I suspect we're going to see a two horse race for the Championship between England and France which could be decided at Twickenham on February 23 when they meet. Home ground advantage that day might swing it England's way and if I was betting on the 2013 6N, I'd probably go for the Poms . . . but I'll be supporting Wales!

Must say, anything will be better than the spiteful and juvenile poison that Moffie is spouting on this board on a daily basis . . . much to the delight of his even more pathetic minions . . . aka the Servile Gimps.

Cymru ambyth!

"Thank God"...??? thought you were anti religion? OBTHW are you still denying you are Rooinek? It's not that I'm guessing who you are, I know who you are, said so back in September when you tried to disguise your old identity behind mushed up english. It's just so funny that here you are calling posters liars but both your Servile Gimps have given you up as being Rooinek while you're still in denial. Come clean Peanut.

Rooinek

In essence I agree with you on this issue and I must admit that despite home advantage the French is likely to come out on top this year.   France under St Andre showed massive improvement this year - but England also have claims.   In this regard one has to take into account -

*   the fact that France eqasily beat the Wallabies; and

*   that England managed to lose against the Same team.

On the othr hand England managed to beat the All Blacks easily - but had a very poor game against the Springboks - they should have won that one with ease.

All in all I would say France will come out on top.

Viva la France!!!!!

Dense, I don't normally waste my time with odious and fawning sychophants especially when they're also foul-mouthed and common boors . . . so do me a favour, shut your poisonous little trap and speak only when you're spoken to. Okay? There's a good chap . . .

PS Oh . . . and please keep your childish filth off rugby-related threads in future. Thanks!

Ou Maaik, I agree that France were overall the more impressive team in November but England's last performance when they gave the All Blacks a proper hiding was nothing short of sensational. That performance, coupled with home ground against the Frogs in this year's tournament is what makes me give them the edge.

Let's see which of us has the bragging rights when it's all over.

Jelly-pippi, I don't normally respond to a pretentious holier than thou low lives who audaciiously call people Hypocites and liars and in the process forget to clean their own backyard.

That said, answer the question, are you still denying you are Rooinek? 

Yes nice to see some top flight rugby again. I am backing England to win as they seem to have a very good all round game. Backline is better than it has been in years and pack is solid. Very accurate goal kicker as well.

I'm so glad to see that you all have such an interest in the 6 Nations and will be supporting anyone other than England !!

We all still have many injury issues and the tournament always proves that anything is posssible, it's not easy to get over the history we all carry with us; that can spur teams on to greater things than anyone expects.

I for one hope England have a good tournament. Let's face it, if it hadn't been for Courtney Lawes throwing the match away against Wales last year, it would have been us with the Grand Slam !!

As long as I see an improvement in my team, then I will be happy. But the injuries are already mounting up and wholesale changes will have to be made. Yet more disruption to a team that has never been able to settle in the first place.

I'll leave you lot to bother about so called bragging rights. I'm not really one to bother about things like that !!

Okay, I'll throw you a crumb just this once, Dense, here goes . . . either keep up or shut up because I'm not going to repeat things just because you're too stupid to understand them.

Now, if you're lifeless enough you can scroll back to find the comment of mine where I confirmed if I was Rooinek or not. It's there somewhere. Run along now . . .

Lady Becs I am supporting England to win. I didnt know about all those injuries though - I am just basing the prediction  on the performance against the wee abs.  England looked like a side on the upward graph as it is also relatively young?

Why so touchy Jelly-pippi, it's your game I'm playing, it's kinda different when the dice rolls the other way Huh?

Now answer the question Punk....c'mon you can do it.....don't duck...don't dive...don't sidestep...are you still in denial?.......yes....or  ...no?

You know and I know that if you stay in denial then you're a liar......don't say I didn't give you the opportunity to come clean.

I see I'm just not getting through to Dense. I wonder why that is? Oh hang on . . . I see now:

Hehe!

Uh-Oh not that one again......I keep telling you to freshen up on your BS, that one is stale...geez man don't you get it!!?...you can't keep on re-gurgitating the same yawning material.

Now c'mon, show some spine and admit here and now that you tried to fool us by disgusing yourself and it failed.

You're sounding a bit sensitive there, Becs. I'm not picking up a "support anyone but England" mentality on here, are you sure you're not imagining it?

All teams will have their depth tested by injuries, it's not only England who have players injured. I do know you currently have a few key players in doubt . . . Croft and Tuilagi are two who spring to mind . . . but so do Wales and France and everyone else.

I think the loss of Corbisiero and Johnson are quite key as well.  As I already said, Croft has barely played since his broken neck and is now suffering with back spasms. He isn't really up to the task, to my mind, at the moment. Alex Goode has been out for a bit with injury, he declared himself fit yesterday, which will be good news if he can play. Calum Clark is out with a shoulder injury...he,  Corbisiero and Johnson all seem to be out for months, not weeks.

Our injury list is quite long, particularly worrying in a team that has not yet settled into any semblance of a settled squad.

But that's the thing, I read bits and pieces on all of these sites about the teams over here and the 6 Nations and I don't ever see that anyone actually has bothered to check the full facts about things.

No-one knows what's going to happen, let alone who is going to win !!

No Becs, you're right, none of us knows what's going to happen or who's going to win the 6N but there's no harm in speculating who we think might win, is there?

Now, which facts do you believe have been twisted or misrepresented on this particular thread . . . other than any of Dense's pathetic attention-seeking, of course?

Becs

I am sorry if I upset you about my comments.   Especially that last outcry was a response to what Rooinek aka jalapono wrote.

I merely looked a the recent test series to try and find whom I think on technical and performance grounds would win the series.  I really believe that there are only two real competitors for the title and those are England and France.   I then look at the results of the tests played recently and came to my own conclusion and that is that the French has a better chance to beat England to the post

No personal feelings here - I merely looked at the games and based my assessment purely on those games.  Hope we get real top class rugby in the series and hope England have their fair share in that. 

Jal, if I had the time, I would post you all a comprehensive list of all players from all 6 Nations who are injured. We are all missing players and I often find that I all get is the same names from England cropping up...Croft hasn't played for so long, he isn't even a first choice these days, yet you leave out Corbisiero who is. It's the comprehensive lists that are important, not just a few names.

Mike, don't worry at all.

We did beat the All Blacks and should really have beaten Australia and SA...we had the chances and didn't take them. Our mistake, but that's Rugby. The win against NZ was a good one and showed we had matured a little, I felt. Learnt from some of our earlier errors :) 

But who knows ? Scotland hate our guts so much that they always throw everything at you. We need to show we've moved on though and can compete at the same level at all times. If the opposition is better than us ? Well, then that is fair enough. But I would love to win the Championship, if the Grand Slam isn't an option !! We'll see...I hope you all enjoy it, anyway.

I get very nervous and shaky everytime we play, if I'm honest ! Always have done..I never lose that feeling, even though I've watched since birth !

Come on Ireland!!

Woulda, coulda, shoulda....Becs. The fact is we played you 4 times with a new team....won thrice and drew once. As for you beating us in the Fall .....that game should not have even been close, we totally outplayed your team and let you back in with 15 minutes  to go. Then with a chance to acheive a result your captain showed sub human intelligence by kicking 3 points when there was no time left.

Mozart

Which game at Twickenham were you watching?  I am sure it was not the test between England and South Africa.  The Springboks were pathetic in most elements of the game and they won by scoring a freak try and converting same.   

Based on performances the POMS should have won the game.   They were proving to be better in critical elements of the game - but stupidity cost them victory.   The Springbok backline was pathetic with a vacancy at 13 killing off whatever moves they tried.   The props were poor and I think the major role played by the loosies (inclusive of Coetzee) as well as Etzebeth helped tremendously.  

If ever there was a team lucky to win a match it was the Springboks that day - as a team they were not the best team on the field of play and in fact was poor in many respects.

 The Springbok defence was good and the boks were way more physical than the All blacks were the following week.

The attack showed a few glimpses of improvement and Lambie played more of his natural game. 

Although If the game had gone on for another 5 minutes England probably would have won. They would have had time to put another penalty over. 

I dont think the decision to take the 3 points was that bad.

All they had to do was take the ball at the kick off, retain possesion and carry the ball up 20 yards or so and win a penality and go for posts.

In terms of scoring a try, England did not look like they were going to do this, but they could have kept kicking penalties over. 

The boks were the better team in the 1st half, and England were better in the 2nd half. 

England and the Boks in many ways play a similar game. Physical but often predictable. That game was real trench warfare stuff.

South Africa was comfortably ahead by 16 points to 6. Then a torrent of penalties to the Poms and a stupid Bok kickoff directly into touch brought the Poms back into the game. The slow conditions suited England and the ref allowed blatant scrumming in by the Pom loosehead.

But I take your point Mike, the Boks deserved to lose because de Jongh was at 13......talk about pig headed bias.

Mozart

Comfortably ahead because of a freak try - whilst the team was struggling.   I have ever ever seen before a try scored like the one Alberts scored and it is unlikely to happen ever again.   That try gave them a ten point lead - which really ws not a realistic reflection at all of the performances by the two teams.  

The one person that did save the day for theSpringboks was a try-saving tackle by De Villiers - otherwise it wa tickets.   

As to De Jongh - for all he was worth during the game - we might as well have gone onto the field with 14 players .  He never was in the right position to get balls passed to him and was consequenrly a huge liability for the team.   I never said the Boks shoud lose because of De Jongh - I said they were bloody lucky to win - because as a team they were not really up to standard and the English failed to use the opportunities presented to them.        

Well you would say that given you picked the Boks to lose. I tried to reason with you Mike, but you were so convinced.

The try was a freak, the pressure that  led to the try wasn't. 

You are just like RooiAAS and Dave who picked the Boks to lose in 2007 and couldn't accept prosperity.

Old RooiAAS even wrote " the Boks' chances are slim to none of winning the RWC and Slim just left town when Pierre Spies went home". I could have made a nice living betting against the three of you.

Mozart

You are talking crap here - I never thought we  would not win the 2007 WC.   Matter of fact  is, I put my money where my mouth is and spend R250 000 on following the Springboks around and travelling all over Europe in between the games.    I was confident that we would win in 2007  - otherwise I would not have done what I did.

As to that try - we at a very few times in the game put pressure on the English - but the fact was the Engkish put more pressure on the Springboks throughout the game.   That freak try was during one of the rare Springbok pressure periods in the game.   The English was the better team on the day and was very unlucky to lose - the rank stupidity of their captain with that last penalty kick at goal did not help their course either.   

"the Boks' chances are slim to none of winning the RWC and Slim just left town when Pierre Spies went home"

No Moffie, I would never butcher the English language to that extent and - apart from Baboon-ou of course - you're the only person I know who's English language skills are so weak that you'd cobble a sentence like that together in such a clumsy and uneducated manner.

If you'd ever like to quote me in future, Moffie, please either utilize the copy and paste function or else stick to your first language . . . but don't try and transpose anything yourself. Thanks.

Sure RooiAAAAAS you want the exact quote. I live to give:

"The way I see it the Springboks have 2 chances of winning the RWC2007....the one is fat and the other one is slim. And Slim was seen leaving town the day after Pierre Spies withdrew from the squad"

You go on to say:

"Without him I don't give us a chance....not with the 'maak sag en skop' rubbish the Springboks have used under Jake White." 

Be careful what you ask for. Wehe! All I had to do was flick my line out there and strike!!!!

Hahahahahahhahahahaha what a screamer!

Much better, I can believe I wrote that. It sounds like English, not like the babble you put up.

Now you remember this episode the next time you're tempted to "quote" me and you won't have repeat everything. There's a good chap. 

Respect......very few people I know would admit to such a total embarrassment. Can Zidone and Dusted be next. But oh, oops, as Jalapeno you claimed you knew nothing about that. Wehe!

I think you're confusing me with someone else, Moffie, I've never been so far up my own arse that I think I'm right about everything . . . that would be . . . ummmmm . . . you! 

Sure Old Fruit, if that makes you feel better after that drubbing.