Six Nations 2021 - Round 1 Verdict

The dust having now settled a little on the opening round of Six Nations fixtures, here’s my tuppence ha’penny’s worth on the weekend’s action…

On a beautiful early Spring afternoon in Rome (reason, surely, to keep Italy in the competition?) France strolled to a very comfortable 50-10 victory over the Azzurri. As predicted, the Italians played some good stuff in patches but seemingly every time they made an error they were punished. France really didn’t have to work too hard for their points as the imperious Dupont pulled the strings at will. They will surely have sterner tests to come but, make no bones about it, this is now a seriously good French team that will take some stopping.

And then to Twickenham. Oh dear. As well as Scotland played (and we must acknowledge a fine performance from the Scots across the board), England were pretty hopeless in every respect. It is all very well Eddie Jones saying that his team didn’t have enough possession to get into the game – that’s true enough, but when you concede penalty after penalty and then kick away all the possession you do have, I’m not sure what he expects. More on England later, but for now it is sufficient to congratulate Scotland and wish them the best for the rest of the competition – with three home games to come they are definitely in with a shout.

Finally Cardiff, and a very strange game in which Wales looked the better team until Ireland’s Peter O’Mahony was (rightly) given a red card, whereupon Ireland played by far the more accomplished rugby. Wales, in the end, were hanging on against a team that played for over an hour with 14 men and were a botched Billy Burns penalty kick to touch away from possible defeat. Neither, to be honest, looked like possible Six Nations champions but Wales will take the victory forward while Ireland can take plenty of positives from the game.

TF team of Round 1:

15. Stuart Hogg 14. Teddy Thomas 13. Gary Ringrose 12. Cameron Redpath 11. Duhan van der Merwe 10. Matthieu Jalibert  9. Antione Dupont 1. Rory Sutherland 2. George Turner 3. Zander Fagerson 4. Tadgh Beirne 5. Jonny Gray 6. Sebastian Negri 7. Hamish Watson 8. Gregory Alldritt

Total Flanker – the older I get, the better I was