Rugby Overkill: Six Nations and Super 14

Well, well, well, this was a packed weekend with lots of rugby and I took the chance and watched a little bit of the action. Interestingly enough I was able to compare southern and northern hemisphere rugby with the Super 14 championship applying some of the new set of rules, the so called ELV (Experimental Law Variations). No I don't really understand all of those new rules, but it seems that combined with the speed and creativity of southern hemisphere rugby this looks simply amazing. While I was watching Bulls vs Crusaders (19-54) or Lions vs Blues (10-55) I was thrilled to see wonderful passing and running. And it was also great to watch all those players I had only seen on their respective national teams before. The Crusaders victory was brilliant with All Blacks fly half Daniel Carter setting the pace and executing a wonderful kicking game. In the end he also scored a try and completely fooled some Bulls forwards when he was clearing the ball with a kick in his own end zone.
This was completely different from what the European national sides were showing at the Six Nations. I know there always is a difference between club sides and national teams, but while I was watching Ireland vs Scotland (34-13) - although this was intense and exciting - this match didn't have the dynamics and the flow that the Super 14 matches had. I have no idea if this is due to the use of the ELV or if it's just the difference in approaching the game.
The top match was somewhat of a surprise though with England beating France in Paris 13-24. France were looking very good in their first two matches although they were struggling in their game against Ireland in the closing minutes. They were playing with a very young pair on the half positions, François Trinh-Duc at fly half and an extraordinary performance of 19-year-old Morgan Parra at scrum half. It had the same feeling was the semifinal in last year's World Cup but this time England were playing with a lot more offensive effort than back in October, I thought. This was exciting to watch, although a lot of running plays were cut short by a formidable defense on both sides. Still England has to look for a better player at full back. After being hammered for his performance against Wales full back Balshaw didn't look very convincing to me.
With the results of this weekend only Wales (who beat Italy with a convincing 47-8) is still undefeated. Trailing are England, France and Ireland with records of two wins and one loss. This is promising to be a very eciting final to this year's competition.

Rugby Six Nations: France top Scotland

Scotland vs France 6-27
That was an interesting game. I don't know that much about French rugby but I was a bit surprised when a lot of names that were on the team during the World Cup last year disappeared for the Six Nations competition. Players like Michalak, Domenici, Chabal and others were missing. But as the German commentator explained it seems that the Frnech coach is trying to build up a team for 2011 so most of the squad are very young. Still this young Frnech team was all over the Scots during their match at Murrayfield last Sunday. Although they were making some mistakes in their play it always seems they outclassed the Scottish side a little bit. There were hilarious mistakes by the Scottish back players, especially one which gave the French a try. But the match had a lot more intensity than the opening game of Ireland and Italy on Saturday.

What also struck me was that they only played the first verse of "Flower Of Scotland" and then the whole audience at the stadium was singing the second verse on their own. Great stuff.

This looked very convincing for France so I am really looking forward to their match against Ireland next week.

Rugby Six Nations: Ireland and Wales back on track

I think I mentioned before that it is very hard to follow the action in world rugby in germany since there is no tradition whatsoever. And because of that there are no matches shown on TV. But this seems to change a little bit for the better because a German sports station (DSF)is covering the Six Nations this year after they seemed to have some success with their World Cup broadcasts last year. I have to admit that compared to their normal program - especially their football coverage - the rugby matches are very well commentated and the commentator is very well prepared. Andreas Renner is able to give enough explanations for newcomers who are watching their first rugby match, but his knowledge of the game itself is so good that he can also give facts to the team and the players on the pitch which makes it interesting for people who are into rugby as well. There is a colour commentator as well, usually a German national team player or a coach, sometimes the Sevens national coach. I am very happy that the Six Nations get coverage on German TV and I still hope they will do the same when the time comes for the Tri Nations.

Ireland vs Italy 16-11
The first match of this years competition wasn't that much of a thriller, Ireland was pretty much in charge during most of the game. The best phase for Italy came when they were reduced to 14 when one of them got a yellow card only 10 minutes from half time. The scoreline looks closer than the match really was and Ireland secured the win very safely.

England vs Wales 19-26
It was a competely different story for the second game of the day. When I tuned in England were already up 9-3 and they looked very convincing. Especially Toby Flood was everywhere. Wales didn't seem to be able to cope with the fierce English attack and especially the English wingers were very threatening during most of the time. But in the last 20 minutes England somehow lost control of the game and Wales came back with two tries after putting the English backline under a lot of pressure.

Since this is my first Six Nations I'm not really sure what to make of those results. Considering that the Welsh and the Irish performances during the 2007 World Cup were disappointing (if you believe in what the newspapers were writing back then) their victories today must have been a step towards the right direction. England on the other hand came in as the runner-up in the World Cup and lost. So this must be seen as a setback, I suppose. I wasn't expecting too much from Italy although they only missed the World Cup quarterfinals because of a narrow loss against Scotland.