WHAT HAPPENED?

 

 

And the Six Nations is back for 2008! A good chance for teams to either progress or rebuild after the World Cup. England may have made the final in France but we seem to have problems digesting our regular food. Last time round we only finished in 3rd place and you have to go back to '03 before we even finished in the top two, though that was also our last Grand Slam. As for my second team, Scotland haven't won the Six Nations as we know it currently though did win the last Five Nations Championship back in '99.

Last time out, England faced Wales at the Millenium Stadium with the men in white looking to soothe wounds from earlier on in the championship. Cardiff is not the best best to try and do that and we got beaten 27-18. However if you take the two sides to Twickenham then you tend to get a different story. Like what happened in '06, England turned on the class in the second half and trashed the visitors 47-23. It's been a familiar tale over the years.

Well it was to Twickenham that the two teams headed to open up the 2008 championship! England had fresh faces to try out, with the likes of Luke Narraway turning up in the starting lineup though the guy I was interested in checking was Lesley Vainikolo, New Zealand born rugby league convert that sounded suspiciously similar to Jonah Lomu! Wales for their part had a new coach who reckoned that his lot could make history, my feeling was "bring it on".

Well Johnny fixed up a nice and early penalty to give us the lead only for James Hook to level things not long after! After that though it was England on the attack and Johnny grabbed another pen before we were struck by injury. A Johnny drop goal kept us on the front foot though and then our famous kicker set up another legend causing the Welsh defence to duck before an incoming Vanikolo who set up Flood for our first try, Johnny converting. Wales crumbled, Johnny grabbed two more pens to Hook's extra one and could have got a second try but led 16-6 at half time anyway.

We started the second half looking to finish the Welsh off and another Johnny penalty meant that we looked sorted but disaster wasn't far away. It started with the game in general getting messy, but it was the Welsh that got their act together, starting with took hook penalties to bring the visitors back into the game and everyone in a white shirt was blundering! Finally Hook released Gareth Bryne who ran through for a try before kicking the conversion - match level! And immeditaly after the restart Mike Philips charged down a kick and no one could catch him, Hook converted and with 10 minutes to go, that was it really. Wales won 26-19! "England, what have you done?".

The last time Scotland faced France was in the Stade de France in last year's Six Nations and the Scots got caned 46-19 despite starting the match strongly and that allowed the French to take the title. However the last time the two sides played at Murrayfield back in '06 it was a different story, anything can happen on Scottish turf and in this case it turned out to be Les Bleus going home to think again to the tune of 20-16, one of the great recent Scottish performances!

This time round, well the two sides were back at Murrayfield and neither of them had much to complain about during the World Cup. Still, the Scots had some new faces on display and Frank Hadden decided to pick Dan Parkes as kicker with Chris Patterson not even in the XV. The French had had a complete overhaul since the World Cup though, a new coach and players that some of the big names in French rugby hadn't even heard about. Either way it looked to be interesting.

Well Scotland's opening kick was dodgy but they recovered by opening the scoring with a Parks drop goal. From there on in it was Scotland that ran the show for a bit but the French broke through when Vincent Clerc ran through after possibly recieving a forward pass. Jean-Baptiste Elissalde converting. Damien Traille then added in a penalty and the French takeover was confirmed when blunders from Rory Lamont and Parks allowed debutant Julien Malzieu to claim a try. Scotland replied by charging into the opposition, forcing a penalty which Parks kicked. Both sides dodged bullets late on in the half but the bottom line at half time was France winning 17-6.

Scotland needed to start attacking in the second half but precisely the opposite happened! The French set up camp in the Scottish 22 and no rugby side can pull off a comeback in that situation! The Scots were soon crumbling and it soon became obvious that we were talking damage limitatation and Traile added another penalty. Scotland finally got on the attack but the French broke and Clerc lobbed the Scottish defence to grab his second try, David Skrela converting. France cruised, the Scottish coaches were flaming and France won 27-6.

Elsewhere, Ireland faced Italy at Croke Park. Ronan O'Gara opened the scoring for Ireland with a penalty before converting a Girvan Dempsey try before David Bortolussi got the Italians on the scoresheet with a pen. O'Gara added another pen after half time only for Italy to make a match of it with a Santiago Dellape try. O'Gara and Bortolussi each kicked a pen and the Irish managed to hold on for a 16-11 win though there will surely be tougher tests to come for them!

Well from a Scotland fan's point of view, the only way is up and from an English point of view it's a similar story. Scotland are on course for the wooden spoon with England in 5th place, level on points and only having a +14 game points difference advantage over the Scots. France are the early league leaders, two points ahead of both of them!

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