What a Weekend

Wow - so far i have to be honest, it has been an average tournament but the tiny flame that has dared to flicker over the first couple of weekends truly ignited on saturday. It was a great day of rugby, truly a 'super saturday'!

Let me start with the first game of day. Scotland vs Italy. Even as i write this i am still bemused. What were Scotland doing? They self destructed! Thinking back to it still makes me chuckle as i truly dont know why Scotland were trying to play a game which they can't. It was suicide. Trying a chip over the top, from within your own twenty two, in the first minute. Then throwing huge looping miss passes. Did they think they were playing sevens or did they think suddenly they were the All Blacks. God knows but it was very very strange.

Now, lets move onto Croke Park. I am becoming a huge fan of this place. I was there when France won in the last minute and i was so impressed with the atmosphere that i can only imagine how intense it must have been late on Saturday when the national anthems of both sides echoed around the ground. You could feel the emotion and could see it in the players. Seeing big John Hayes' eyes water up with passion made you realise how much this meant to the Irish. And their play was majestic. They were powerful, comitted and rampant. The phrase has been used a lot already but they completely outclassed England. Obviously there is a lot of talk about Farrell and Bumface out of everyone has seemed to get it right. (What is the world coming to!!) Farrell is too slow. No two ways about it. But he shouldnt be held responsible for the loss. Colectively, England were poor.

Now Wales. Finally i am slightly happier about talking about a Welsh performance! Wales showed confidence. From being a team struggling to attack and not having scored a try in two games, to go and scored three away from home in Paris is a sign of improvement. They seemed to have confidence and more clarity. They scored three tries, two of them well worked and the changes Jenkins had made seemed to bring more understanding to the team. However, lets not ignore it, there are still issues that need to be addressed.
Wales need to win more ball. 37% possession is no where near enough at this level and as a result Wales had to make twice as many tackles as the French. Although all in all there was improvement and the future looks...........well.....brighter.
A note on game timings - sort out these late games! How is anyone meant to have a glass of wine after a game which finishes close to midnight!

One final ramble from me - Cardiff, Millenium Stadium, Sunday, Carling Cup Final.
Footballers, don't fight, your not good enough at it!