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Plittle about this year’s Six Nations championship has played out as anticipated in January. Here we are on Halloween with the title still undecided, no fans allowed in the stadiums and no visibly dominant team for garland. It would be very fitting for this weekend to take a late and unforeseen turn that no one saw coming.
Things already feel strangely bizarre, with the tournament’s natural rhythms hopelessly altered. October is suddenly the new March. This year’s Six Nations is no longer a stepping stone to spring, but a stepping stone to midwinter. There is a spinoff championship, also known as the Fall Nations Cup, which starts in fifteen days and the 2021 edition starts in three months.
No matter the grand slam, say hello to a potential triple hit. All of which makes the final round even more difficult to call than usual. Ireland had their moments in the second half against Italy, but how much of that was due to the opposition? France won impressively against Wales in their warm-up match last week, but they have beaten the Irish once in the Six Nations since 2011. England have an ominously strong group and a theoretically powerful backline, but they haven’t played a party since March.
The last time England came forward with this type of delayed end reel, in 2001, things didn’t end well. Clive Woodward’s team had been unstoppable earlier in the year, scoring 44 points in Wales in Cardiff and 80 in Italy. The foot and mouth disease outbreak, however, pushed his critical game against Ireland in Dublin until October. By then his momentum had stalled, Keith Wood was in raging bull mode and the red rose was cheerfully trampled on the old grass of Lansdowne Road.
Could it happen again? Surely not in Rome against this particular Italian team. The weather will also be clear and dry, ideal for English purposes. The Azzurri have conceded an average of 36 points per game in this championship and despite a powerful charge from Gloucester’s Jake Polledri, a 40-point margin between the teams appears to be on par. That would bring England’s point difference to +55, enough to secure the title unless France can beat Ireland by an even greater margin or the Irish take victory in Paris with a bonus point.
The title, in short, is based on the balance between risk and reward or, to put it in the context of this particular weekend, trick or treating. A tough defense alone will not determine the outcome: if it did, Scotland would be elected champion having conceded only four tries, half of which England have let in. Unfortunately for the Scots, seeking their first win in Wales since 2002, they’ve managed just six at the other end – a final flourish at Llanelli to massage those stats, with Finn Russell on his back wielding the baton, would do wonders for the confidence of Caledonian in the future.
If there’s a key weekend metric for everyone, it’s probably ruck speed. Give the French backs a quick buck (the forecast for the night in Paris is also dry and soft) and Ireland may offer au revoir to their dreams of glory. Slow down the game, frustrate their hosts, cleverly kick, score a couple of attempts and examine France’s discipline, and the Irish will have a much better chance of arriving on time with everything still at stake. If all is well, they can look at the scoreboard, speed up, and go for the magic bonus point.
According to the tests of this tournament, France is not necessarily impregnable. Having won their first three games, Les Bleus really should have had enough to defeat Scotland in the fourth round, even on their ghostly Murrayfield field. Instead, Camille Chat was hurt in the warm-up, Romain Ntamack was injured after 10 minutes and a red card in the first half for prop Mohamed Haouas caused further chaos. However, if they keep 15 men on the field and scrum half Antoine Dupont and his developing group start to dictate the pace of the game, there tends to be only one winner.
As England and France were the two best European teams at the World Cup last year, logic would identify them as the two strongest contenders now. The ball, then, is directly in the court of Ireland if, to borrow from Stiff Little Fingers, there must be an alternate outcome. When they lost disappointingly at Twickenham in February, there was no real sign that they would top the 2020 table and their mindset this weekend will be key to their success.
Former Irishman Ronan O’Gara, now a coach at La Rochelle, made it clear this week. “They are in a fight for the gold,” O’Gara told the Irish Times. “It’s not about getting a bronze this weekend. There is everything to play for. If you score three attempts after 75 minutes and force a pass, they intercept and score to the other side, and you lose the game, I think you can live with that. There is a great reward for being braver than usual, as long as you have a little intelligence. “
There is a precedent to draw from in the form of the 2015 Six Nations, won by Ireland despite England needing a 26-point victory against France, winning a breathless 55-35 match on a final day that captured the neutral imagination in everywhere. .
Do the Six Nations need bonus points? There is nothing wrong with the idea of rewarding rugby with more purpose, both from the front and the back, but rugby also needs to do more to protect the integrity of its major competitions. Clearly, there are broadcast advantages to staggered kick-off matches on “Super Saturday”, but it hardly provides a level playing field, particularly in a year where France and Ireland enjoy three home games to England’s two. , and the organizers have had all summer to think. about the possibility of rescheduling its ending.
As it stands, the onus falls back on the players to keep going to the best of their ability. This particular crystal ball predicts a major English victory and a far less emphatic French success, handing the overall crown to Eddie Jones’ team for the first time since 2017. Following England’s well-deserved defeat in Paris on the distant opening weekend, that might not be considered totally conclusive but, given the challenges the sport operates in, Jones and his players will not bother at all. It’s also possible that France and England could meet again in another final before Christmas, at which point any argument can be properly resolved.
It will not be easy for anyone, wrapped in its various “bubbles” disinfected in closed European places, deprived of the traditional ornaments of the Six Nations and with the interest of the public apparently diluted. Anyone interested could do worse than trying to replicate how Wales great winger JJ Williams, who is now sadly gone, approached his rugby – fast and most of all, resourceful. The 2020 stop-start championship has been a marathon like no other, but now a scorching JJ-style finish is required.
