Six Nations 2014

Who will win the 2014 Six Nations?

  • Total voters
    43
EdWeatherall said:
The Mike Brown-Rob Kearney battle for the aerial ball will be a key one, as there's been a lot of up and unders
Brown has been excellent under the high-ball since he came in, hopefully this continues
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Kearney is outstanding aerially. I think Brown is very good when the play breaks up. He seems to make good ground when he has the ball.
 
So we've established that they're both good.

RORY65 said:
Not sure a team without players like Ferris, O'Brien and Bowe can be considered the full team but we're in a much better position than last year. The selection of Goode is even more strange given Ford is on the bench, I know Goode has played a lot for England at full back but there are other English backs who would surely make more of an impact off the bench. It really is such a difficult one to judge, part of me leans towards England because of home advantage but I am confident (or maybe hoping) that Sexton and Murray can give us an advantage in the kicking game.
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Fair point. I don't really know who'd be your first picks but I basically recognised every name in the team..

I feel like you guys haven't turned up against us for too long much like France, and we know how that one went for us.
 
Strong performance by the Welsh scrum tonight, French went to pieces and lost their discipline. All to play for now. Come on England tomorrow!
 
I think it will be a tough one today, especially at Twickenham but I reckon we will come through again in this one, Schmidt had a game plan and got it bang on for Wales, we can bet he will have as rigid a game plan for the English game too. Plus the lads are playing great rugby at the moment too.
 
fecking cnut Scots. Didn't deserve that at all. Celebrate all you like, you're still shit.
 
feck sake, having to commit too many to the tackle on that phase of play.

Edit - no try!
 
Need to be careful with these little kicks over the top. They just keep going straight into English hands.
 
Shit! We almost had it over for the try there.
 
Losing discipline and shape here now.
 
England's half. A real contrast in styles here; England's brute force and Ireland's quick hands. It's a really interesting contest.
 
Yes! Cracking start to the second half by ireland.
 
Get Schmidt to do the united half time talks. What was said in that dressing room at half time? :lol:
 
This ones going right to the wire methinks.
 
Great game despite the result, blows the whole competition wide open.
 
England thoroughly deserved that, Ireland didn't warrant being as close as they were. Ireland on course to do the same as they did last year - humble Wales and then lose to all the other big boys?
 
Nah I would expect us to beat France and Italy. England was always going to be the hardest game of the tournament and they deserved that win today. They had a phenomenal intensity throughout and we couldn't compete with that. I would hope we don't follow this year through as we did last year.
 
Excellent game from both sides. It is so much better when the scrums stay up, and there's not 10 minutes or so of re-sets taking the tempo out of the game. Wilson looked a liability though - maybe Thomas will take over for the last 2 games.

Hop that ankle injury doesn't leave BOD one short of the record. He's a shadow of his former self, but he deserves to go out on a high.

With +21 points difference over England though, it's still basically in Ireland's hands.
 
You expect us to win in France when we havent won there in 14 years? England will win their last two I reckon, so we need to beat France, which is far from a given.
 
I don't think France is a given result but I think our pack is better than the French, we are capable of beating them despite what history may dictate.
 
iSparky said:
I don't think France is a given result but I think our pack is better than the French, we are capable of beating them despite what history may dictate.
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This is true, but if France's back line are on form on the day it's hard to stop. Fofana for me is such an incredible centre it can be troublesome.
 
Red Shorts said:
This is true, but if France's back line are on form on the day it's hard to stop. Fofana for me is such an incredible centre it can be troublesome.
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It's an oft-used cliche but it's even more true at the moment that it's impossible to predict how France will perform. You're right in that Fofana is a phenomenal player and they showed in the first two matches that they can score some terrific tries if given the space but there seems to be no actual plan as to how they attack while they won't have the platform of a dominant scrum as they did on previous occasions. It will be bloody tough but there's now a very good chance we will take to the field knowing that any win will win us the Championship and I think we have a great chance.
 
Really really happy with that from England.

Good for the tournament as a whole also.
 
I saw that, very good news for you. Bastareaud has been very average every time I've seen him.
 
Bad news for England Billy Vunipola out of the 6N. Morgan comes in at 8 and is a quality player but Billy will be a loss. England's injury list grows.
 
Watched this on Saturday and was stuck to my chair. Good game to watch. Ireland really stood up to England physically and dominated the scrum but that didn't gain a lot in penalties. England left a couple of tries out there too with Nowell and May not looking great on the wings. Is Ashton injured because if not I would still have him in there. I think the sheer intensity and the fact that your side is younger really counted as the likes of BOD and D'Arcy were really stretched and Ireland looked out on their feet in the last ten. Sexton's kicking was a little off too but I think he shipped a knock in the second half which could account for that. Brown was my man of the match. His aerial ability and running from deep at great angles was outstanding. A real find at fullback. I think this year was always going to be tough for Ireland. With France and England away it's a huge struggle and we rarely beat the two of them away let alone at home. The Wales result may force the French to rid themselves of Saint Andre but hopefully he will hang on for the Ireland game and we can get a win.
 
Re Ashton vs Nowell/May

No doubt Ashton would score that 1st half chance that May had, he's a finisher, an excellent one at that. But the trade-off is the sheer volume of work that Nowell and May get through, their constantly in off their line looking to get involved

I don't think it matters much really, both (and/or Ashton) are only keeping the shirts warm it seems for Marland Yarde and Christian Wade

Anyway, fair play to the France management

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/26341392

The cynic a=in me wonders if it was England, Wales or Ireland if the reaction would be the same
 
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