Northern View: England succumb to 'sheer beauty', French 'fragility' fear, Gatland 'honeymoon turns to dust'

Netflix have been casting around to find a way to regenerate their business and they’ve made worse moves than committing themselves to a behind-the-scenes project with the Six Nations Championship.

Which category do you fancy? Horror? Try Wales in the first half against Ireland? Drama? Scotland coming back from an eight point deficit to beat the Auld Enemy at Twickenham. (Careful. This is a repeat showing. Scotland also won there in 2021, drew in 2019, and have now beaten England three times in a row for the first time since Hadrian built that Wall and Robert the Bruce did his stuff at Bannockburn. Same story, then, but at least the cast has been shuffled).

Suspense? Italy, oh Italy, could they do it, could they hold on to that two point lead against mighty France? So much for the sporty buffs among you. What about Ballet? Even though there are not many leading men in leotards that top the scales at 105kgs Scotland wing, Duhan van der Merwe does but for sheer beauty his 55 metre try slaloming run was one of the finest bits of artistic theatre ever seen at Twickenham, so, so reminiscent of the late David Duckham whose similarly flowing efforts for the Barbarians against the All Blacks had recently been reprised on the recent 50th anniversary of that famous match at the Arms Park.

We tend to get a touch over-heated up in the north when we come to the annual shindig between European neighbours, all self-indulgent and over-wrought about the value of the championship. It used to be a fair point of criticism from the south of the equator that the better party booze-up was in the north but that the quality of the fare on offer was more substantial down south.

This 2023 Championship is the tournament that will really put all those theories to the test. On the opening weekend it’s hard to find too much fault. Ireland’s first victory in Cardiff in ten years, coming within a whisker of recording their biggest ever away win there, winning with much to spare and with acknowledged room for improvement, was classy. It would be churlish also to pick too many holes in what was a fabulous Calcutta Cup, all aired to a terrestrial TV audience of millions. Scotland, Ireland and South Africa are in the same World Cup group. Suddenly that pool looks rather tasty.

At a time when rugby in these parts is in crisis with disgraceful examples of bone-headed misogyny in Wales, accusations of collusion and bullying in France, union disregard for a stricken female player who ended up taking her own life in Scotland and massive PR incompetence in England as well as crass financial mismanagement at two of its clubs, there was a real need for the sport to present a different, more wholesome front. Those scandals will not be wiped clean by a few thrilling matches. But, boy, was it as relief for supporters to have some upbeat news.

Ireland as genuine World Cup contenders ? You betcha. They may have dipped as Wales rallied in the second-half, the prospect of utter humiliation spurring them into some sort of meaningful activity even if we all knew that the match was already beyond them, but they didn’t panic, they simply rode the turbulent patch before making sure they claimed the all-important bonus point with Josh van der Flier’s try in the latter stages.

Ireland as a country went through many traumatic experiences before emerging into the, more assured, more layered, more multi-cultured and multi-dimensional entity it is these days. Its rugby team has also endured its fair share of gloom and despair along the way before finally acquiring a new-age identity. No more plucky losers, no more flattering to deceive, no more flash-in-the-pan victories, scaling heights before tumbling backwards.

(Photo by Mark Thompson/Getty Images)

Tellingly, Ireland have now embraced the status of being favourites, welcoming the pressure it brings rather than shying away from it. New Zealand have coped with it for decades, used it as a spur to even greater achievement.

The no-excuse culture was on display even before kick-off with two late drop-outs, notably livewire scrum-half, Jamison Gibson-Park, the catalyst for so much in Ireland’s whiz-bang 2022, injecting pace into all areas of the game. No matter. One man falls, another steps in. If there were any concerns that veteran no.9 Conor Murray might put a brake on Ireland’s ambition, they were rudely disabused of such a notion by the three-try combo that had the game won for Ireland by midway through the first half.

Caelan Doris in the back-row, Hugo Keenan at full-back, Garry Ringrose crunching in the centre – Ireland have plenty of heft in their ranks. As well as Johnny Sexton. And, yes, their World Cup prospects do fade if the ageing maestro were to get crocked. That is Ireland’s Achilles heel.

Match days in Cardiff can ruin the hardest of folk. The crush, the grog, the crack, the antics, the delirium. For a long stretch it look as if half the Welsh team were still ensconced on Chip Alley, that well-known, well-lubricated city-centre Hades. Up in the coaches’ box, Warren Gatland’s face told its own story. The expected bounce from the return of the Great Redeemer had turned into a belly-flop. Honeymoons aren’t supposed to turn to dust quite this quickly. Tough Love Island for the Waikato man.

Of course Gatland knows there are few fairytales in sport. The 59 year old hasn’t acquired such a grizzled air through mere birth. He has lived all such experiences, the lows as well as all those highs in his previous tenure as Wales coach. His immediate predecessor, fellow Kiwi, Wayne Pivac, is a decent operator. Wales’ results, including home defeats to Italy and Georgia, were rubbish because the team was riddled with fault lines. The wobble factor was in full view across a chastening first half against Ireland. Flat-footed, ill-disciplined, slow in thought and deed.

As for Scotland – well, bravo, for taking the game to England, bravo for not fading and folding and bravo for such a sustained performance. But let’s see the follow-up before rushing to change predictions for that World Cup pool. If Scotland can repeat and repeat, we are all in for a treat.

There will be many who delight in England’s continuing woes on the scoreboard. That, after all, is part of the very spice of the championship. But there was enough of merit in England’s defeat, the footballing ebullience of two-try Max Malins on the wing, the ball-carrying of props, Ellis Genge and Kyle Sinckler, to suggest that they have more grit and togetherness about them than they showed in the final days of Eddie Jones.

And France, everyone’s favourite for World Cup honours? Well, we thought we’d bid farewell to that old cliché of not knowing which France might turn up to any given game but there was more than a glimpse of that old fragility before they finally pulled clear in Rome. They travel to Dublin for what already looks to be the defining match in the Championship. One to savour. Netflix executives will be salivating.