Ireland win the Six Nations to emerge as World Cup targets

Your point being? France missed simple shots which also include penalties that should have made England's task more difficult and further punish their lapses. Plisson and Kockett are much better kickers than they showed.

You know there's a reason you have to take kick, right?

Northern Hemisphere teams watch out the SH teams are coming to get you later this year.

Inaccurate - England v Italy - second round - 6 tries to 2. And if you watched the Wales v Ireland and thought it was rubbish then perhaps you should stop watching rugby. Incidentally, in the first week of the Rugby Championship last year, there was just one try scored between the four teams. NZ got three bonus points in the whole tournament. SA got 1 and Australia and Argentina got zero. It's not all about scoring tries, much less four of them every match.

It wasn't quality Rugby as I pointed out on the other article and leaking soft tries cost England and Wales in the end so despite 'the entertainment' they fell short in defensive basics on the day. France left at least 12 points on the park. Only the Debaty conversion from the touchline was difficult.

The Lions team to face NZ in 2017 will be very strong, stronger than the team that faced Australia and I suspect they will have a better coach.

The Answer is to increase the points for a win to 6 and 3 for a draw. However I like the 6 nats as it is.

Possible but doesn't happen often.

The intent to score tries was missing until the last round. In no game in the first 4 rounds did any team score 4 tries. In one game the winner scored no tries. As entertainment the last round was excellent the first 4 were rubbish.

The positive intent to score tries was so evident with points for and against so important. Eng france game was great. Courtney Lawes hit on Plisson gotta be the hit of the decade. Youngs was outstanding and frances fijian winger nakaitaci looks a real talent. Courtney Lawes' massive hit on Jules Plisson, England v France, 21st Mar...: https://youtu.be/S3QDOWk1qIo

Britain wasn't playing, it was England

Reposting this from an older 6N article: he 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.

Who scored the most points in the Championship? 1. England 2. Wales 3. Ireland Who scored the most tries? 1. England 2. Wales 3. France Who conceded the least points? Ireland (56) Wales 93 and England 100 Who conceded the least tries? Ireland (3), Wales (8) and England (11)

No then you will risk teams with less wins getting the title.

Isn't it truly amazing that the 6N teams can play open attacking rugby searching for tries when the occasion demands it. England Ireland and Wales averaged 52 points each last weekend and all scored 4 tries or more. This begs the question as to why they don't try to play that sort of rugby the rest of the time. Sure I accept they were playing the 3 bottom teams so that helps, but in early games where top versus bottom was in play nothing like this happened but with motivation on their side these teams can chase extra points when they need them. When Italy played Ireland 2 tries were scored. When Ireland played France Ireland kicked 6 penalties for all their points with France scoring the only try. When Wales played France they scored 1 try apiece. As it turns out if bonus points for 4 tries and close losses were handed out the end result would have been the same. However, as evidenced by last weekend, I can only help but wonder if bonus points were attached from the start what would flow would be a better class of entertainment.