Six Nations set for grandstand final day, with four potential champions

Taylorman; they won a full 6N tournament in 2011 and have finished 2nd in the 6N each year since, the last 2 years on very narrow 'points difference' (6 this year). Funnily enough 2011 is the last time Australia won a tournament as that was the year they won a shortened RC with NZ and SA playing weakened sides. I don't think they've come remotely close to winning one since. Before that I believe the last tournament Australia won was in 2001. I'm not the one saying England are going to 'eat Australia alive' if they make a couple of tweaks to their game - for that sort of hubris based on no evidence you tend to have to find an Aussie.

The 6N finale may have been entertaining to watch with all its tries and successive chase targets. But they were special circumstances. As Bakkies rightly points out above, you could argue that what won Ireland the title was not that they reached a certain score for themselves, but rather that they prevented scores against themselves. Wales were behind on the scoreboard for most of the first half, with Italy taking two well deserved tries. Wales got a successful penalty kick just before half-time to give them a slender one point advantage. Without doubt, they came out in the second half and played Italy off the park. But like Ireland in 2007, also against Italy in the final match, Wales lost concentration towards the end and Italy took advantage and 7 points off their total. Up to that point Ireland had been staring at a 28 point margin against a side that had lost by 7 to France and 12 to England away and just by 3 to Wales at home, albeit losing to Italy hadn't helped. And suddenly 28 became 21 - psychologically boosting Ireland just before they kicked off. In the Welsh game, it was Italy who first posted points on the board. And continued to do so - 20 points in all. Despite having two men sent to the bin. At Twickenham, England were the first to get points on the board. And then promptly conceded sufficient scores to France to give them the lead. And having re-established a commanding lead at half-time, England found themselves needing even more by the 60th minute. By that time, the French didn't seem to care about the result, they just kept punishing England's lack of defence. In 20 mins of the second half, France scored 15 points. 5 minutes later, it was 20 points. If their kicker had been on form, it would have been another 12 points on top of that. At half-time, England were ahead by 12 and they knew they needed 14 points to win it. They had 40 mins to shore up their defence, maybe force some penalty points to put themselves into a commanding position with fresh legs on the field to extract the remaining points. Instead, they let the French right back in it and set themselves what turned out to be an insurmountable task, even if the French looked like they wanted to play for another ten minutes as the match clock struck 80 minutes. Ireland got their points on the board early. Their captain touching down in the first 5 minutes followed by a penalty. They were up 10 points in the first ten minutes. Cooler heads prevailed. Scotland got a penalty and Ireland responded with a try. They slowly extended their lead but didn't go wild. Scotland's persistence pays off and then get a try. Ireland regather and extract another penalty. They have a 10 point margin at half time and looked in control. When they come out for the second half, Ireland were clearly determined that whilst they need more points, they were not going to let Scotland score again. 10 mins later, they were up by a further 10 points and within a point of surpassing Wales' target. Within 30 minutes to go, Ireland could afford to be patient. It's another 10 minutes before Sexton kicks them past the Wales target. Scotland are suffocated for the next ten minutes, and the pressure eventually tells with Ireland scoring another try with ten minutes to go. They now have a 30 point margin and English mouths take a gulp as they see their target jump to 26 points against France. Like the Italian match, there was one final moment. Not of attack, but of defence. With three minutes to go, Stuart Hogg was part of a great attacking break for the Irish line, he brilliantly stepped past two Irish defenders and dived over the line for a certain try. Out of nowhere, comes the flying tackle of Heaslip who hits Hogg as he's diving and uses his hand to dislodge the ball from Hogg's grasp. No try. That was a seven pointer right there. Scotland's loss in the match. England's loss on the margin. And ultimately what proved to be Ireland's winning of the title. For all the tries and tribulations of Super Saturday, defence still matters.

Thanks Ben. I don't know if you were at the game in Twickenham, but it was a thrilling end to a most enjoyable day. Until next year. Cheers.

Played.

I must make a clarification on my narrative of the England France game (to go along with my acknowledgement that much of my knowledge of Rorke's Drift comes from the film Zulu :) ) When I said that "some decent Frenchman" finally kicked the ball dead to end the game and grant Ireland the title, it is perhaps significant that the player in question was Rory Kockott, who was born in East London. On watching the replay, when the penalty was given to France, he immediately starts celebrating but then play bizarrely continues as one of his team mates decides it's a good idea to run the penalty from his own line. But a few phases later Kockott obviously thinks "This is all very Gallic but who's French around here?" and booted the ball dead. Thank God for South Africans!! :)

Where England are only excellent at coming second. Once again they fail to bring home the bacon. When is the last time they won a series or tournament? Great mindset to be in for the world cup....lose this one, lose that one...

It used to be Six Nations under 19s and under 21s in separate comps. There is a European under 18s comp.

Play was actually stopped just after that when France failed to control the ball and an England player pounced on it which regained possession. You can argue that France should have had the scrum because the whole thing was a mess, but then it was France who started the fracas over a hit that was completely legal.

.............and, despite all the claims about having the 'best backline in the world' their try-scoring rate is not notably superior to most of their rivals. All in all then, I think what Degsy meant to say was that if the Wallabies become excellent in the set-piece (which they're not now); and become excellent in defence (which they're not now); and become excellent at tearing sides apart ball-in-hand (which they're not now) then they'll 'eat England alive'. He could be right!!

Congratulations Dave and Pot Hale. Ireland are deserved winners, and apart from some question marks surrounding the midfield, I think it's entirely reasonable to say that they're easily the most complete side in Europe. It's close at the top (behind NZ), but Ireland are fantastically well coached and have some bona fide world class players. A fitting title. From an English perspective, we go into a WC with serious selection question marks. Again. Lancaster has had four years now, but how much have England really developed in that period? It seems the media have only just cottoned on to the fact that he's the other sphinx without a riddle. On the plus side, at least he's not contracted until the next WC... Oh, wait... What I would give to have somebody like Schmidt in charge of this pool of players. And I'm sure Welsh fans would say the same. One final comment: Paul O'Connell - my goodness, what a ferociously fit and tough man he is. An absolute phenomenon. The media talk about Alun Wyn Jones and Courtney Lawes, but O'Connell is in a league of his own.

If the Wallabies ever learn to scrummage AND defend, they might eat England alive. Conceding 26 points, 26, 29, 28 and 29 points in their last five Test matches doesn't make for pretty reading.

If the Wallabies ever learn to Scrummage they might eat England alive.

Shsssh now Bakkies. Nothing wrong with the Lawes tackle. At least he gives half backs a chance coming face on - unlike your namesake who preferred to get one prostrate before head butting him in the back of the head. Now that's cowardly as well as dirty. If only Lawes had of been fit for Dublin ...Sexton wouldn't have been quite so comfortable.

France had the ball near the touchline which is where the play was stopped and had won the ruck. He told Dusautoir that there was no infrigement. The scrum went back to where the tackle was made on Plisson in the middle of the pitch and the game continued so I don't know how that came to be an England feed.

If you like no defence go watch Basketball and it isn't acceptable if you want to win the title. As I said the team that actually defended their own line yesterday deserved to win. Including attitude and commitment to stop Hogg. The Scotland try came off a rotten bounce and they retained possession from it. The first O'Brien try and Payne's came from sloppy defence. England's pourus defence cost them the title and the Welsh let the Italians in for a late score that ended up reducing Ireland's target. The score would of been worse for Lancaster had France kicked their goals. Shows that you are devoid of reality when you ignore the importance of defence in these matches.

Shame Kyle Eastmond wasn't playing but Rugby Union fans have been complaining about lack of tries and boring games alongside your general public who say they watch it but don't understand whats going on in Union....well yesterday showed that Rugby Union should be entertaining and thats what the professional game should be about. You can shoe your 10 man scrum resets and penalty bore feast up you jumper.

Umm, hey Bakkies 'if you actually watched the game' seems to apply to you. He didnt tell Dusautoir he had the feed, he said England had turned the ball over and thats when he stopped play and thats why England had the feed.

Sorry, Bakkies, but no he didn't. Owens and the TMO said the Lawes hit was fine because.........it was fine. As Owens said on the ref mike he was committed to the tackle before Plisson released the ball. Regarding the restart Owens said to the French captain, England were about to secure the ball at the ruck so I'm awarding the scrum put-in to England where the action stopped (not where the tackle was made).

Well somebody needs to toughen up, especially if they are going to say such stup1d, negative and , quite litterally, WRONG statements. 55-34 is acceptable in test match rugby and heres a few examples of scorelines between NZ and SA. 38-27 40-7 45-26 52-16 46-40 55-35 Aus vs NZ 51-20 47-29 49-28 50-21 Aus vs SA 39-41 44-31 52-7 61-27 49-0 So stfu negative nancy. Sheeesh, talk about glass half full. Games like this do have a place in test match rugby and are very common. Test matches dont have to be close, low scoring or whatever other ridiculous restrictions you want to place on them. This was a great day of test rugby where caution was thrown to the wind FOR A REASON.

England beat the Wallabies in 2010 with a running game. The French basics and ball protection was horrible.