I now have a picture of you standing at front of classroom like that teacher bloke in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off –

“OK boys and girls, the French fought the ….anyone, anyone…English in the Battle of?……anyone, anyone…Hastings in ten sixty…..anyone anyone, six and the ……anyone, anyone…?” Reminded me so much of schooldays. Very funny scene.

Was only slagging you…. honestly…didn’t want…you to take it …..too seriously.

We are in for an exciting couple of years as virtually all the main nations try and sort out their squads in the build up to RWC2011. From an English point of view the first batch of the academy players are breaking into the GP, Care, Cipriani, Rees, Croft, Naraway, Crane,etc. How many if any will step up to International Level will be fascinating to watch? So many unknowns.

On the press there is no harm in overbulling the players as rugby struggles to generate publicity for the game in the England and the UK generally. Of course, football rules the roost but rugby offers another dimension for kids to consider and the spread of the game and its popularity is generated by publicity and brand awareness. The professional game has to sell its product and even if some of the players don’t cut the mustard the continual debate creates the interest.

It looks as though DC has made the wrong choice with Perpignan as they are almost out of the HC, but the return in Perpigan on Saturday will particularly interesting to see Flood v Carter at the fly half. Carter could struggle as Perpignans pack was completely dominated by Leicester, with Julian White destroying their fromt row.

Quins took their chances and their defence was superb, after being camped in their own 22 for 10 minutes at the end.

The problem with Carter going to France is that some of them don’t take it seriously for some reason, and at the moment it looks like very few of them are going to make it out of the pool stages. Toulouse should do it but Clermont must win tomorrow to stand a chance and Stade losing to Quins today is a huge blow for them.

It looks as though you have England down to win the “Wooden Spoon”. In the late 70′s and early 80′s England were so bad that a group of English supporters got together to form the Wooden Spoon Society. Essentially it started off as a way of getting over your England blues, but over the years it has grown to become probably the largest rugby based charity in the UK and raises large sums for various good causes. Indeed the main benficiary of the Baa- baas v Wallabies match on Wednesday was the Wooden Spoon Society.

How will England perform who knows, Italy will be no pushover and the 6Ns look as though it will be as unpredictable as ever. Looking forward to it, the BBC coverage is superb and I suspect the TV ratings and attendances will hit new heights.

You’re right 5/17 matches is not a good result. But it’s a more accurate summary of the Autumn Internationals than the article that headlines this discussion makes out. find it somewhat infuriating that discussion on SH teams seems to revolve always around SANZAR performances, but when it’s NH teams, the pool is wider. Anyway, point made – I won’t belabour it.

I don’t think there will be a Grand Slam this year in 6 Nations. Since Home and Away alternates against teams each year, home fixtures benefit some teams. For example, France have got a great home record and are rarely beaten, so playing them away is going to help another team in search of a Grand Slam. Ireland, England and Italy play them on their home patches. Croke Park and Twickenham will be hostile venues and I figure they’ll lose one of them. Wales winning in France will be tricky, but they’ve got Ireland and England at home. Ireland have England and France at home, which they could win, but they’ll find Wales at the Millenium very difficult. So the top teams could lose out against each other, and the Championship gets decided on scorelines as has happened in previous years.

Difficult to call who’ll score the most tries….

1 Wales
2 Ireland
3 France
4 Scotland
5 Italy
6 England

5/17 doesn’t sound too crash hot to me. I don’t think I’d be throwing that figure about to try and feel better about state of play in the north.

I agree with some of your points about the Irish, especially with regard to the spirit/crowds/compellingness of matches, at least from the appearance on the TV. Sounds like they’ll be happy (?) that they made their targets.

I doubt any of that stuff comes into the bookies calculations though – they’ll be looking at recent performances, history in 6N and available player form. I wasn’t convinced at all by Ireland’s performance vs the ABs – Wales certainly made a better fist of their chance, despite score lines. And Wales beat Australia, who have been the only team to run the ABs best line up close this year consistently. Also Wales are defending champs, have IRB player of the year, and great coach. They’ve got to be odds on to win 6N.

I’d rate Ireland better than England and probably France currently (although a lot depends on which french side decides to turn up on the day). Incidentally, Scotland looked better than England and France currently too, at least in the game against the ABs second stringers.

As for all the stuff about the WC pools, well I think it’s all pretty irrelevant. It’s not being played next week, so it’s a bit hard for anyone to know whether any particular opposition is going to be worth their salt in 3 years (although history would suggest that England, Australia and the Boks will be in good form by then).

For example, if the debate is going to be about SH vs NH in comparing quality and performance, how about making the comparison fairer? Why not compare 6 nations from SH with 6 nations in NH? Why not include Argentina (4th), Fiji (10th) Samoa (12th)? After all, those are the top 12 teams in the IRB rankings. NH results against SH teams (including Pacific Islanders) makes it 5 wins out of 17 matches. So of the 6 nations that played, only Scotland and Italy failed to win a match against SH opposition. That’s a more accurate picture of what happened. Still poor by NH teams, but more accurate.

Against SH teams, Wales, Ireland and France won one match apiece. England won one as well if you count the PIs.

Another point. Why is everyone focusing on Wales as the best of the NH teams? In my view, the Irish seemed to do as well, if not better, in terms of meeting targets, and winning scorelines.

England got hammered in every game, (bar the PIs) and were arguably the worst performers of the 6 nations, given the scorelines. They failed to get 4th spot in WC, but regard themselves lucky in getting Argentina/Scotland. Hmmm.
Italy lost to PIs but ran the Aussies close. They fell into third tier of WC, and got Australia and Ireland for their efforts.
Scotland ran the Boks close as evidenced by the scoreline. But lost both their matches against SH teams. They missed their target of getting 8th spot, and got England/Argentina in their group.
Wales lost to ABs. They lost to SA – by a smaller margin, and they beat Oz – not by much. It was a good result against a team playing their 4th test in as many weeks. Not outstanding though. Gatland wanted to get Wales into 4th spot for WC draw – he failed to meet that target, and got landed with SA as a result.
France lost the game to OZ – and narrowly beat Argentina without crossing try-line. They failed to gain 4th spot and ended up with NZ as a result. Lievremont won’t be happy.
Lastly, Ireland whupped Canada, were beaten by AB’s and then beat Argentina – handsomely.

They had 3 matches based on what teams were willing to play them. Don’t know why that is – they get the crowd numbers, and they have the passion as instanced by Munster – the best match of all over the last few weeks. The Canada match was more for the benefit of the Canucks than serving any useful purpose in preparing the Irish for the furnace of the All Blacks play, and the result was a given. However, Ireland’s stated target by coach Kidney was to maintain their second tier ranking. And since Canada wouldn’t have any IRB points, he had 2 matches to achieve that. Beating the ABs was going to be a tall order, but given their results down South in last couple of games, they had well-founded aspirations. They failed to prepare. They did well in first half (like Wales & England subsequently) and then were over-run in the second half. However, of the four home nations, they conceded the least amount of points to ABs.

Then they played Argentina – the 4th ranked team in the world. Their bogey team, who had put them out of World Cup twice. A game with a lot of niggle and bad history. A far more compelling match to watch than the AB game the previous week. O’Gara came out of his shell and steered the game perfectly including his perfectly judged kick into the arms of the winger at game end. They won by 14 points – the best winning margin of any of the 6 Nations teams against SH opposition – well IRB-ranked teams anyway.

They met their target of keeping second-tier place, and got a WC draw group from which they are highly likely to qualify for quarter-finals. I reckon they’ll give OZ a run for their money – they only lost by a point in their last two WC matches.

According to bookies, Wales are now rated 2/1 for Grand Slam, and Ireland are rated behind England and France.

Don’t get that.

apart from that fudged kick from o’connor he played very well. lachie turner speedsta! Lote playin smart footy. Few big hits, great physicality from the green and gold.

ps love the new baba’s jersey, wonder how many pounds those will go for?

You are right, in the main English rugby is a social event and I can remember when I played you wouldn’t dare buy an orange juice or mineral water after the game, because it just wasn’t done, you ordered a jug of beer. Training what is that, on a cold wet Tuesday or Thursday evening prefer to be in the clubhouse having a few beers. This mindset does take a lot of readjusting and it is only with the new breed of professional players who have only known the professional way that the elite game is changing. Cipriani for all his socialising is teetotal, and the majority of the new breed is the same. They have very strict discipline regimes at their clubs and if they transgress then they are out.

As these players are being increasing better rewarded for their efforts, there is a greater commitment to the professional way,. They must retain a greater level of fitness not just through training with their clubs but right across their entire lifestyle. Many of the new breed have started taking extra personal coaching on sprinting as they have to show not just to their clubs a 100% commitment, but that extra element which places them above the rest. It is becoming increasing competitive. For example, there are a number of academy players at Quins who are sweating on professional contracts for next season, all good players with plenty of potential but who has the extra element to be a successful professional player. I am glad I don’t have to make that decision.

Will it translate through to the International arena, who knows, but if the competition is strong at the lower level then there is a better chance of success.

I know Spiro loves to have a pop at the RFU, but the RFU in many ways is similar to the FA, set up in the amateur era struggled to get to grips with the elite professional game. The Premier clubs in football moved away to form the Premier League so in rugby exactly the same has happened with the professional clubs forming the Guinness Premier League. It is only this year that the Professional Game board has been established with the RFU, The GP and the Professional Players union having equal stakes in the formation of the board. Their remit is to monitor the overall performance of the professional game in England, the number of foreign players, the relationship between club and country, incentives for clubs to introduce more English players to the first XV’s etc. Very early days, with Johnson incidentally being nominated by the GP clubs not the RFU to sit on the board.

I must admit preferring at this stage that England are written off as no hopers, because given time we may surprise you. Whether it will be by RWC2011 I don’t know but once an Englishmen gets a bee in his bonnet he generally works it out and is successful.

On player numbers – maybe having large numbers available makes things harder, as there is always someone just below top level who can step in, fail, and be replaced after 3 games ? A reason, maybe, but certainly no excuse for England’s underwhelming record over the past 5 years.

I disagree with one area that the writer covers – I think England are weakest in the front 5 – back row is not too bad, once Haskell, Rees, Easter, Narraway, Crane and Moody are all available. They need to get shot of Borthwick, who’s never looked the goods, stick with Kennedy, start Hartley, and kick Sheridan’s and Stevens’ arses around Twix a hundred times a day, followed by some intensive coaching in how to actually do their f**king jobs.

9 to 15 is reasonably OK and will be better once Noon is sent back to clubland and replaced by Tait at 13; but there’s no point fiddling about with them while they’re not getting the ball. The current crop, as MJ says, is about the best we’ve got, so we need to stick with them.

South Africa have taken on all comers even with an oddball coach who has no idea what he is doing – its in their nature.

NH rugby needs to take a good look at its future direction. To be so consistently beaten especially in the second halves of games shows an ingrained, inherent problem in the system. Wales are heading in the right direction but look who’s coaching them! It was not that long ago that Gatland was coaching the Ireland team until he was turfed out on his arse by internal IRFU politicking – what a loss that has proven to be.

There’s no shame in getting beaten by superior teams but year in year out the lessons just haven’t been learned. As an NH ‘native’ I’m sick to death of the optimism borne from hope not reality – NH teams must think differently or 2011 will be a waste of time for them.

As for Benjamin – he returned to his home planet some time back, exasperated at other people persistently having different opinions to his own.

Having said which, if you want to lump all teams in the “Southern Hemisphere” together for the Autumn Internationals (as we call them up here) then the real figure is three NH wins out of fourteen. Argentina, third placed in the last world cup and fourth in the IRB rankings lost to both France and Ireland, the latter by a new record margin.

In fact, that game came close to changing the pecking order in a way that would have made a mockery of the IRB’s rankings system. As I understand it, the margin of 15 points is a watershed in the IRB’s calculations. If you lose by 15 points or more your ranking figure takes a serious hit.

Argentina lost to Ireland by 17 -3. The last score was a try in the corner and had the conversion gone over, Argentina would have lost by a margin of 16 points. That would have been enough to push them down the rankings from fourth to fifth where their place would have been taken by England. What makes this ridiculous is that while Argentina were losing in Dublin to a new record margin to Ireland, England were suffering a similar but worse fate at home to South Africa, losing eventually by a whopping 42-6.

However, a successful conversion of Irelad’s late try would have seen England climb a place in the rankings to fourth, despite their abject performance that day. What makes it even more ironic is that the difference between fourth and fifth at that moment in time was the difference between a first and second tier seeding in the next World Cup.

However, just to prove that two ironies can cancel each other out, the fates conspired to put both Argentina and England in the same world cup pool anyway. So, Much Ado About Nothing, as that great Northern Hemisphere writer Shakespeare might have put it.

Not really fair since 1. Schalk is actually an openside and 2. Everyone seems underdone when compared to him.

“Anyone else has a favourite Benji comment?”

I liked the one where he takes a dump upon the legend of Os du Randt.

He would probably start with something like this: “BJohnson SIGH what a juvenile comment”

Anyone else has a favourite Benji comment?

I was wondering where Benjamin has been myself. I enjoyed reading his views and provocative comments, he’s clearly as passionate about the game as we are and we need more people like him on this site.

I’m picking the Wallabies to lose this match, but then again I picked them to beat Wales last week so what do I know?

the Reds also signed Ezra Taylor from the Highlanders.