- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Round 2 of the 2014 Six Nations confirmed one important thing for us, Ireland are much improved under Joe Schmidt and that performance against New Zealand was not an aberration,
But there was more to learn from the weekend’s action: Wales are struggling and their performance against Italy was also not an aberration and while France and Ireland are the only two undefeated teams, it’s still potentially a race in four to the title.
Ireland v Wales
The first match of the weekend was predicted to be the round of the match and I don’t think it disappointed.
However, that wasn’t because it was a titanic struggle as most of us had predicted. I thought Wales would get home in a tight finish but they were never in the match – not even close.
Was that because Wales played poorly? I’m not sure, because we never got to see what they could do – Ireland simply refused to allow them to play.
It was one of the best defensive performances I’ve seen by any team for a long time.
It wasn’t scrambling defence like we saw from the Wallabies against the Springboks in the 2011 Rugby World Cup, where it was almost unbelievable how often the Wallabies stopped the Springboks when they looked certain to score. This was a completely different defensive performance, where Ireland just sucked the life out of Wales and didn’t allow them to get into position to score very often at all.
When the Welsh did get close to the Irish try line, the Irish muscled up and took away the opportunity.
They did this through fantastic line speed, aggression in the tackle and ruck areas, denying Wales clean ball at source by attacking their lineout and through a fantastic kicking game from Johnny Sexton who kept turning Wales around and pinning them in their own half.
Some have suggested Wales were brought undone by their reliance on ‘Warrenball’ tactics but as I said on Twitter on Sunday that defensive performance from Ireland would have been effective against any team and any tactics.
Defence coaches could be made redundant all over the world and be replaced by video footage of this match – just tell players “watch Ireland and do what they do in defence”.
On the other side of the ball, Ireland’s attack revolved around their driving maul from the lineout. You’ll note that I said ‘driving’ not ‘rolling’ because we very rarely see rolling mauls anymore and there is a big difference between the two tactics.
Ireland’s use of the driving maul was outstanding and their final try involved a drive from the Welsh 22 down to the try line before the ball was released. Wales had no answer other than to attempt to stop the maul illegally.
Johnny Sexton was fantastic for Ireland as was Paul O’Connell but the best Irish player had to be Peter O’Mahony, who dominated the rucks. While he had #6 on his back, he played like the ultimate fetcher.
It’s no wonder Wales looked shocked after they failed to score a try in going down by 26-3.
They have a mountain to climb now to get back into the tournament and although they can still control France and England as they have yet to play them (with France next up at home), they’ll have to rely on Ireland slipping up if they are to be a chance of defending their title.
Ireland on the other hand have all the momentum and will feel confident about their next match against England at Twickenham.
Scotland v England
While England only scored two tries in their 20-0 victory, Scotland were never in the hunt and England created so many more opportunities than the two they managed to finish.
The English backline showed a little more flair this week and their centre combination of Billy Twelvetrees and Luther Burrell were good.
Jonny May and Mike Brown also played well – Brown is becoming a real threat that teams will have to watch very closely.
Billy Vunipola was again strong and Dylan Hartley played his best game for some time.
As for Scotland, what can anyone say? They were impotent in attack and average in defence.
If Greg Laidlaw and Duncan Weir are the best in Scotland at controlling a game, the pain isn’t going to end anytime soon. They’re not on their own of course and I can’t suggest any player who played well for Scotland.
The only positive about the Scots’ performance was they did keep fighting and their desperation allowed them to get a hand to a number of last passes from the English to disrupt some good attacking opportunities.
We can now say Scotland are as bad as many of us feared before the tournament began.
I can’t even say Murrayfield looked good because it looked more like a bog than a rugby field. The new hybrid pitch that’s going to be installed for next season can’t come soon enough.
England again did enough but they must be disappointed in the last two weeks they’ve been unable to really finish off the opportunities they’ve had.
Their home fixture against Ireland in two weeks’ is going to determine where their season goes.
France v Italy
With ten minutes to play the score in Paris was 30-3 to France and if you haven’t seen the match that may suggest a romp for Les Bleus.
However, at halftime it was only 9-3 to France and it had been a fairly even contest.
France started reasonably well but Italy found their rhythm and while they may not have looked too threatening they were in with a good show of producing an upset.
Then in a ten minute burst after halftime the French left the Italians in their wake with Louis Picamoles scoring from the base of a scrum and then Wesley Fofana scoring a brilliant individual try before he made an intercept that led to a near length of the field try for Hugo Bonneval.
All of a sudden, the match was effectively over and France went into cruise control. To their credit the Italians kept coming and scored a consolation try near the end to leave the score at 30-10.
Sergio Parisse was Italy’s best (as he often is) but there weren’t many others to talk about.
Jules Plisson looked a lot more settled at #10 for France as did Brice Dulin at #15. Fofana had another good match and Mathieu Bastareaud made more of an impact this week.
I still don’t know what to make of France – are they a contender or will they fall back? Their next match at Millennium Stadium against Wales may go a long way to answering that question.
My team of the week is: