6 Nations

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Dipper

Dipper

Norm Smith Medallist
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Oct 28, 2000
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Hooray the 6 Nations kicks off tommorow.

England go to Murrayfield to avenge the defeat of 2 years ago.

I'm not even sure of the other games.I think that Ireland play Wales in Dublin but I'm not sure & that would leave France to stuff Italy.


Come on England!
 
Yup Ireland v Wales is in Lansdowne on Sunday and France v Italy on Saturday.

How do you see the England game going? For some reason I can see England thoroughly knocking the cr*p out of Scotland.

France Italy will be a non-event, whereas I feel Ireland will edge out Wales in a tight game

My predictions for the weekend are as follows:

Scotland 10
England 51

France 52
Italy 13

Ireland 18
Wales 16

GO ON YOU IRISH!!
 
Hey Colin the real prediction is picking which team will screw up England's destiny in wining the grand slam.

Suppose England bombing another grand slam will manage to deflect some attention away from the arse kicking the English will experience on their cricket tour to NZ.
 

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Hi Guys...

Gee I am so glad we are getting some rugby back on the screens, as yet have not had a chance to have a look at the games, but will catch up this week on Optus.

What I did have a chance to have a look at for a short time was the IRB 7's final between Aust and NZ...good game of footy with Wendall Sailor and Matty Rodgers making their debuts....
Matty was a target by the Kiwis because he played so well, but hell that's footy:D

I think it won't be too long before both of these guys don the Wallabies jerseys..Matty in particular had a great game.

Catch you all soon.

Cheers;)
 
Well an amzing performance from Ireland, showing that they really are the real deal.It was the sort of performance that only England have been capable of in the 6 Nations in the last few years.

It was a TOTAL anhialation oif the opposion, sure the Taffies were poor but Ireland were superb.

It sets up a great clash at Twickers in 2 weeks time against England.

England beat Scotland 29-3 away at Murrayfield which on the face of it looks great but it was an unusual game for England.Where usually in the 6 Nations we manage to have loads of ball & batter away at the opposition line, usually scoring a bucketful of points but also ruing(sp?) a lot of missed chances this was totally different we were clinical in our finishing as we basically had 4 chances & scored them all & only kicked 1 penalty all day but the Scots actually had more ball than us & kept it for worryingly long periods although our defence never looked likely to break we just kept absorbing them with tackle after tackle & our line appeared as secure as Fort Knox.

The French were poor against Italy despite winning comfortably in the end, the Italians killed a lot of ball & had 4 yellow cards but France can't hide behind this.

On the performances so far you would have to say that Ireland look the best equipped side to win the comp especially as they had 3 Lions missing including the talismatic Keith Wood but as we know a trip to Twickenham is daunting I don't think we've lost at home in the 6 Nations since about 1997.The only question is how bad were Wales, were they that bad that Ireland were flattered or were Ireland that ruthless that they just never gave them a chance?Personally I think it was more of the latter.


As for France for the Slam doubt it on that showing.

Player,
so you're pretty confident about the cricket huh?I don't blame you as the Kiwis have been playing well.I'm interested to know a bit about Shane Bond, he keeps taking wickets but I haven't seen him bowl.What are his strengths?Is he rapid? swing the ball , bounce?
I'd fancy us to give you a good go if we had Gough, we're shooting ourselves in the foot a bit leaving him out.We don't have that many wicket takers that we can afford to go in without him.I actually think the sides are pretty well matched, it may be that home advantage carries the day.The 2 sides are pretty similar in make up, I keep reading that the Kiwis are playing it tough & I think to some extent that England are doing the same.

should be good.
 
Had a great day yesterday. To see Ireland put in such a performance was brilliant. To see so many genuinely world class players in green shirts was something I never expected BUT Wales were absolutely p!ss poor. They were by far and away the worst set of players to represent the miners I’ve ever seen.

I don’t want to seem as if I’m taking away from our boys, but we have to be honest about what we actually destroyed yesterday because if we don’t England will bring us back down to earth with a huge bang. The way I look at it, yesterday was a job well done but if we are going to beat England in a fortnight, big improvements will be needed.

Dipper,
I think yesterday proved what a fcuk up some of the Lions selections really were;)
Are your lot a little scared of us now? I still fancy England to win in a fortnight, but I’m finding the thoughts of having Scotland in Dublin to clinch the triple crown is almost too much to contain myself&:D
 
I actually have just moved flats (and cities) and accidently left my big screen TV (I mean seriously how do you forget something like a big screen TV?) in my old residence.

So I missed all the weekend rugby but I must say well done Ireland. Should help the old for and against points tally some what.

Tick Tock Henry, Tick Tock.

The only problem with competition is that after only one week and already there is only one game that is a must see.

And on the cricket:
Shane Bond aged 26, Police Officer from Canterbury and directly related to a Maori chief, but I don't know if he is a Maori himself.

Thank god you don't have to know someones ethnic background in New Zealand to make a national team, unlike South Africa.

Bond is a tall and solid quickie, the barest of yards slower than Lee, he pushes the ball through at 150 kph max (god knows what that is in mph). The Australian commentators can see him get the ball to move back into the batsman, but I'm not so sure I can see it.

He is the sort of bowler you actually enjoy watching bowl, you have confidence that he is quick enough to get through batsman with pure pace.

A legitimate weapon, I must admit its been brillant having someone capable of intimating Australian batsman for a change.

On paper Bond, Cairns, Nash, Vettori is a very impressive line up, but every one of them is carrying a niggle.

Our other 'Neville No-Bodies' third seamers are in the high 130s (ie a little quicker than McGrath) range, but lack endurance and control.

Cairns is starting to show some wear and tear.

Nash is constantly out with back problems

Vettori was almost killed in a car crash just before he made the test team, spent months in hospital with a smashed back, and apparently can expect to have increasingly serious back problems for the rest of his life.

If the team that played Australia hard turns up I'm confident New Zealand will win this series (just like the last series in England :) ), but the team the just played Bangladesh looked like a lazy team with plently of bad habits returning.
 
Originally posted by The Blues
Had a great day yesterday. To see Ireland put in such a performance was brilliant. To see so many genuinely world class players in green shirts was something I never expected BUT Wales were absolutely p!ss poor. They were by far and away the worst set of players to represent the miners I’ve ever seen.

I don’t want to seem as if I’m taking away from our boys, but we have to be honest about what we actually destroyed yesterday because if we don’t England will bring us back down to earth with a huge bang. The way I look at it, yesterday was a job well done but if we are going to beat England in a fortnight, big improvements will be needed.

Dipper,
I think yesterday proved what a fcuk up some of the Lions selections really were;)
Are your lot a little scared of us now? I still fancy England to win in a fortnight, but I’m finding the thoughts of having Scotland in Dublin to clinch the triple crown is almost too much to contain myself&:D
Click to expand...

After I posted I wished that I'd mentioned the Lions.

I think it proves what we both already knew that there weren't enough Irish players in the squad, most notably David Wallace & Dennis Hickie, & Jonny Hayes would have been the best back up for Vickery & that there were far too many Welsh players.You could even make a case for saying that you could have squeezed in a few England players that weren't first choice for England at the time ie Bracken.

Also it shows selection issues aside that Henry is a negative coach who easily loses the respect of his players & tries to choreograph every section of play so that players aren't able to play off the cuff which when you've got free spirits like O'Driscoll, Robinson & Balshaw is plain stupid.

By picking him it showed the spinelessness of the Lions selectors who were afraid of picking an English coach in Woodward as they felt with so many English players it may have alienated the other nations.The reality is that Henry was totally blind in his over selection of Taffies where I am sure that some one like Woodward would have picked his squad with no bias & I guarantee would have thrown in a few shocks (I mean to say this weekend he played a 20 year old scrum half who has only palyed 3 1/2 club games in the premiership!) & who would have absolutely loved to have worked with the likes of O'Driscoll, Keith Wood etc.

I think England sjould be more than a little scared but conversely the Irish should be even more scared:D , can't hide behind that underdog tag anymore.

Player will undoubtably be interested to know that should England win by more than 16 points then we would replace the All blacks at the top of the world rankings.Whilst I'm not a fan of these computer generated things it was interesting to note that the computer predicted an England win by 26 points over Scotland last weekend-score 29-3.

As for there only being one game of interest that's not entirely true, even though France were unimpressive if they win their next game & England win theirs then their clash becomes the big one (away at Paris) & if Ireland beat England then their game with France becomes big.We should remember that despite their poor showing against Italy they are coming off 2 wins against South Africa & one against Australia.

Cheers for the info on Bond by the way, sounds like he's pretty quick (I'dlike to know what 150 kph is in mph), the NZ attack is pretty good on paper.I'm a big fan of Cairns but it always seems like he's fighting against his body, I rememebr when Atherton was asked about the quickest bowlers he'd faced & he said that Cairns was really quick early in his career.I still remeber him taking our attack apart in the last series when it looked like we were going to win one of the Tests that we eventually lost, he just swung the whole game round.

BTW Player are you going to try out for a place in the Mad Caps?
:D
 
Dipper please stop saying how great we are!! Don't you realise we'd much prefer if you were arrogant and condescending to us Micks, cos that's usually when we're at our best!

Regarding the Wales game, great result but we were made to look better than we are by a terrible Welsh team. That said we can go to Twickenham with a quiet confidence that we've never had before. But let's not forget England still have fresh wounds from the last encounter:)p ) and will be really fired up for it.

On the Lions, I think Hickie would actually have made the squad but for injury. He's really bounced back though and is playing the best rugby of his career.

I only saw the first 20 mins of England v Scotland and England were winning 12-0. They looked like they were cruising to a cricket score...it's encouraging to see they didn't:)
 
Originally posted by DIPPER

BTW Player are you going to try out for a place in the Mad Caps?
:D
Click to expand...

The whole thing is an embarrasment for any self respecting cricket fan. With cricket I'm a bit of purist, but I love being on the Eastern Terrace at Eden Park for a ODI, the cheapest seats in the country with the worst view in the house.

Magic. 15,000 people sitting on hard concrete with no shade and a hot, hot sun beating down, people who have come for a good day out, and prepared to make fun when things get slow.

It takes a special type of tourist to field at third man at Eden Park. Last year a Zim had us eating out of his hand, adopted by the fans, you would have thought he was a local with the support he was getting, even when he was taking wickets.

That said I think its naff having organising fan behaviour into groups to counteract the touring support. You can't get any more informal than cricket in New Zealand, if tourists want to spend a day drinking beer watching the cricket, playing backyard tests on the outer during the breaks, while having a low belief in the ability of their team but with an increasing confidence in the future then I'm sure they will fit right in with the locals.

Must admit thou I still LOL every time I see one of the TV ads for the upcoming series.

And on the rugby

It can't be from playing a lack of international rugby that New Zealand is about to lose its number one possie, God knows a 10 month rugby season is long enough.

The biggest problem watching 6N is that I don't tend to watch them live. Actually I think the only 6N game I have ever watched live was the high scoring England Ireland game from Twickers two years ago, which I really enjoyed, despite wanting the underdogs to win.

Unfortunately I usually know the results, and have a summary of the action long before the games are rebroadcasted (is that one word?) on television. Kind of lessens the enjoyment of watching sport when you know what is about to happen.

England ranked number one in the world?

Obviously proves that the ratings are part of just another English racist conspiracy to undermine the self-determination of the peace loving peoples of other countries.

What happens when we refuse to recognise your ratings? Do you then threaten us with sanctions?
 
Yeah I'm with you Player as regards trying to organise fan support & behaviour, the Barmy Army just grew out of an informal football style support for the England cricket team & has now become organised with it's unnoffical leader telling people hoiw to behave & kicking people out for unnacceptable behaviour swearing, rude songs etc.
I wouldn't associate myself with them if you paid me.

As for Eden Park it sounds like good fun for a 1 dayer, especially like the idea of playing a backyard test on the outer.Atherton just wrote an article saying how it will be tough for England coming from a country where everyone is nuts about cricket to a place where no one gives a monkeys he said that Eden Park is hardly Eden Gardens but from what you've said it sounds as if people really get into it.

There's been a few articles on Bond in the papers this weekend with RJ Hadlee saying how quick he is, I was a bit perplexed to see simon Doull take our new ball bowlers to the cleaners the next thing danny Morrison will be opening in the Tests & scoring double tons.:D

As for the Rugby rankings I don't think they're 'our' rankings I've always had the idea that they're heavily biased in favour of the southern hemipshere sides:D , a northern side has never been no1.

Colin,
fear not I've got a stat that should guarantee that Irish underdog status, England haven't lost at Twickenham to a home Union side since 1994 when the opposition was Ireland & I believe Simon Geoghan scored the important try.
 

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Ireland are favourites Saturday (that'll ensure they lose :))

Must be said Wales were embarassing against Ireland :) :) :) x 100 ..... :)

I've never seen a worse lineout from a 'major' country and theirlines in defence were a shambles.

England were in need of a run out but only had four days training as a full squad before Scotland. The timing was a bit off in the backs but the defence was crushing.

If England go in with the mindset they have when playing the AB's, Wallabies or Boks I can't see them losing. If they try for the champagne stuff from the start, as they are sometimes inclined to do (see Dublin last October), and don't quite click they will only help Ireland.

O'Kelly will have his hands full with Kay, Hill and Back will need to play better than against Scotland and Tindall v. O'Driscoll should be an interesting battle of different styles.

Agree on the Lions Selection. Ten Welsh six Iish initially. Ludicrous.

If Woodward, McGeechan or gatland had been coach the series would have been won.
 
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