Nick Wright previews this weekend's clash between York City Knights and Hull FC
Alex Reid looks at whether the once ever-present appearance of English clubs in the later stages of the Champions League is set to become a thing of the past
Craig Dobson looks at QPR's decision to sack Neil Warnock and replace him with Mark Hughes
James Tompkinson reviews an excellent pre-season victory for the York City Knights against Yorkshire rivals Leeds Rhinos
The second weekend of the Six Nations 2010 saw one of the tournament’s most tense games ever as Wales clinched victory against Scotland. Ireland were helpless as France dominated all aspects of the game in Paris. And, in the final fixture of the weekend, Italy were a revitalised team, and although England came away with the win, it was never a sure thing.
Scotland vs. Wales was a truly extraordinary game. My prediction of the Welsh winning did come true, but in the most unlikely fashion. Wales played appalling rugby for the vast majority of the game. Their only attacking strategy seemed to be Shane Williams, who most of the time was fairly short on ideas anyway. Scotland came out fighting in a game where everyone saw them as underdogs. There is no doubt in my mind that Scotland were the better team. They played some excellent running rugby and more than matched Wales up front as well.
Personally I felt this game was lacking in justice. I’ve managed to calm down since Saturday. It’s just frustrating that the best team lost, mostly due to questionable decisions from the referee. Wales were able to claw it back to come away with a 31-24 victory that they really did not deserve. The BBC’s coverage here was awful, Jonathan Davies gave the commentary a very Welsh bias, and I honestly believe there is no place for that sort of thing in rugby (I’m really not a fan of Brian Moore for the same reason).
The French really came into their own this weekend - they were victorious against Ireland with the final score 33-10. They controlled the game from the off and Ireland found it hard to have a say at all. Morgan Parra really impressed me, his passing and goal kicking were very solid and he slotted a drop-goal that I thought was near impossible. From what we’ve seen so far, France are looking the best team of the tournament. Ireland have improved since last weekend, and the back three are looking quite good, but overall the Irish made too many errors and were unable to break the French defence.
England’s shoddy performance against Italy was a huge disappointment. Jonny Wilkinson was on unusually poor kicking form and the team just looked totally clueless. I don’t want to dwell on the disappointment too much. The positives of this game were all for Italy, even though England won (17-12 - only one score in it!), the Italians were the more impressive side. Mirco Bergamasco and Alessandro Zanni played notably well. England did manage to grind out the result but that really is only good thing from an English perspective, I’m really hoping this poor form doesn’t last.
This weekend featured some incredible rugby but I wasn’t very pleased with the BBC’s coverage. I’m not very appreciative of some of the opinions expressed and their heavily biased commentary. The actual rugby was of a high standard (except Wales and England), France have also solidified their position as frontrunners in the tournament.
We now have a fortnight’s break until the next set of Six Nations games so I’ll be back to make some predictions this time next week.
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