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6 Nations

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unperplex
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6 Nations

#476423

Postby unperplex » January 26th, 2022, 11:05 pm

Now that the above are about to start again,what are people’s views ?
I think this is quite an interesting year.
Italy is the only weak link.
All the others have had significant victories against strong opponents in the last 12 months.
France in particular have looked very dangerous.
What do people think about the (relatively) new look England team ?
(Declaration of interest - I am an England supporter).
In general, looking back, is it my imagination, or has rugby become faster and much higher scoring over the past 10 to 20 years ?
The amount of (long) kicking in particular seems to have substantially reduced and there seems to be much more “ball in hand” stuff.
This seems to be the case both in club rugby and internationals.

unperplex
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Re: 6 Nations

#476424

Postby unperplex » January 26th, 2022, 11:07 pm

I am of course looking just at European rugby here…..

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Re: 6 Nations

#476527

Postby BigB » January 27th, 2022, 11:59 am

This year's a good one not to win, maybe come 2nd or 3rd but be developing well...

In the autumn I think we saw several of the sides begin what looked like a 2 year cycle into the world cup, with addition of some new blood and some players left aside. England in particular, but then I think they have the toughest decisions to make as they could possibly name 2 30 man squads from the Premiership that would be international standard. Leaving George Ford aside is an interesting decision, very bold and decisive, but also look how Leicester have benefitted.

France have just had a load of covid exclusions, including Dupont and Ntamack, so it will be interesting to see how some of their depth performs. Dupont is perhaps irreplaceable but Jalibert at 10 is arguably better/as_good_as Ntamack. I have a soft spot for France and would like them to win a RWC next year, assuming Ireland don't!

As a Munster/Ireland supporter, I'm very interested to see if Andy Mc (and the inclusion of POC as forwards coach) can sustain the early signs from the Autumn and keep building. Tbh, with Leinster looking unstoppable atm, and Ulster/Connaught looking good, it seems Ireland are well set for the 6N, but then arguably they peaked too soon for the last WC and were in decline when it arrived.

Generally, I think the 6N format wants tweaking as Italy have gone backwards and we should look at adding a 2nd tier competition, part of the same structure. Teams like Georgia, Romania, Russia, Spain, Belgium (and world rugby) might all benefit from more organised competition between world cups. Could do the same in the southern hemisphere for all the nations not involved in the Rugby Championship.

Enough rambling, let it begin. 6N is one of my favourite sporting competitions!

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Re: 6 Nations

#476552

Postby bluedonkey » January 27th, 2022, 1:13 pm

BigB wrote:Generally, I think the 6N format wants tweaking as Italy have gone backwards and we should look at adding a 2nd tier competition, part of the same structure. Teams like Georgia, Romania, Russia, Spain, Belgium (and world rugby) might all benefit from more organised competition between world cups. Could do the same in the southern hemisphere for all the nations not involved in the Rugby Championship.

Enough rambling, let it begin. 6N is one of my favourite sporting competitions!

Agree with this. It would be good to see those other teams play in an annual competition, maybe with promotion/relegation. Italy would presumably vote against that as they would go down at the end of the first season!

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Re: 6 Nations

#476559

Postby Pendrainllwyn » January 27th, 2022, 1:30 pm

Agreed. I would have the winner of the 2nd tier play the last placed Six Nation side away from home. If they win that then they should get promoted to the Six Nations. I would also think of giving a minimum number of years (say 3) in the 6 Nations so the promoted side has a chance to adapt to the higher standard else there is a risk the bottom slot is a rapidly revolving door and no one has the chance to improve. Italy have had long enough. Others should have the chance to show they deserve the same opportunity.

Pendrainllwyn

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Re: 6 Nations

#476576

Postby BigB » January 27th, 2022, 2:16 pm

Pendrainllwyn wrote:Agreed. I would have the winner of the 2nd tier play the last placed Six Nation side away from home. If they win that then they should get promoted to the Six Nations. I would also think of giving a minimum number of years (say 3) in the 6 Nations so the promoted side has a chance to adapt to the higher standard else there is a risk the bottom slot is a rapidly revolving door and no one has the chance to improve. Italy have had long enough. Others should have the chance to show they deserve the same opportunity.

Pendrainllwyn


That's an interesting proposition. Do you mean that if say Georgia went up at the expense of Italy, they'd have 3 years guaranteed in the top div?

If so, does that mean that possibly another 6N regular would have to playoff the following year against div 2 winners, and possibly repeated each year?

I think 1 up 1 down might be simpler...

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Re: 6 Nations

#476796

Postby unperplex » January 28th, 2022, 9:54 am

Pity about the injury to Farrell (looks like he needs surgery and so will be out for quite a while).
Commentators seemed to think Eddie was going to play him at centre with Smith at fly half.
What is he going to do now ?
Daly has been called up, will he play at centre with Smith ?
If so, who is going to be on the wing in the absence of May ?

I didn’t realise France had so many covid-excluded players. This will certainly disrupt them.
I agree that Ireland look extremely dangerous.
Fortunately England face them at Twickenham rather than in Dublin, but that should be a very interesting match, coming as it does towards the end of the competition.

Of course, as always, we shall have to wait and see.
Nice to speculate though……

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Re: 6 Nations

#476871

Postby Pendrainllwyn » January 28th, 2022, 2:18 pm

BigB wrote:That's an interesting proposition. Do you mean that if say Georgia went up at the expense of Italy, they'd have 3 years guaranteed in the top div?

If so, does that mean that possibly another 6N regular would have to playoff the following year against div 2 winners, and possibly repeated each year?

No. I wasn't clear. I was suggesting that promotion and relegation would only take place every say 3 years. Definitely better than never at all and arguably better than every year. It's worth noting that if a promoted country got relegated after 1 year then given in the 6 Nations you only play each team once (no home and away) it would not have played away at half the stadiums nor hosted half the countries which doesn't seem sufficient reward for getting promoted. But my main argument is they need time to adjust to the higher standard.

Pendrainllwyn

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Re: 6 Nations

#476891

Postby didds » January 28th, 2022, 2:51 pm

bluedonkey wrote:Agree with this. It would be good to see those other teams play in an annual competition, maybe with promotion/relegation. Italy would presumably vote against that as they would go down at the end of the first season!

theyd all vote against it. Cos you never know what will happen in 10 years time.

as for promotion / relegation... All that will create is a flip/flop situation where eg Georgia come up and Italy go down, followed by Georgia going down and Italy coming back up, rinse and repeat.

bottom line is Italy are a sort of tier 1.5 team, and eg Georgia a tier 1.7 team .

The rest in 6N are tier 1, and the rest in any "2nd division" are tier 2.

here are Georgia's results
https://www.flashscore.com/team/georgia ... 9/results/

here are italy's results
https://www.flashscore.com/team/italy/dY0G5w4R/

work through tghose and you can see the patterns.

especially since 2016 when Italy did beat SA, and 2015 Scotland, the alst time they beat tier 1 nations.

and tellingly Italy best georgia the last time they played albeit back in 2018...

TBH there is no answer to this conundrum - chucking italy out of the 6N will just mean they breat everybody in whatever level of competition they then play in, easily.

didds

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Re: 6 Nations

#476898

Postby didds » January 28th, 2022, 3:13 pm

Pendrainllwyn wrote:[But my main argument is they need time to adjust to the higher standard.

Pendrainllwyn



Like Italy have since the year 2000 ?

didds

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Re: 6 Nations

#476903

Postby Hallucigenia » January 28th, 2022, 3:51 pm

An alternative would be to have a "West Indies" made up of the best players from all the Northern Hemisphere sides outside France and the home nations - perhaps under the Barbarians umbrella - which would give experience of the top level to people from a range of countries and so hopefully raise the standard of second-tier rugby in general.

It does feel like a mistake to have locked Italy in permanently, they definitely benefited from a "golden generation" which made it look like the underlying state of Italian rugby was better than it was.

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Re: 6 Nations

#476912

Postby terminal7 » January 28th, 2022, 4:26 pm

The legendary Parisse kept Italy just about afloat for many years by appearing to have a clone on the pitch.
Since his retirement the gap between Italy and the rest has grown particularly since Scotland has improved in very recent seasons.
Let's hope that a number of Italian grannies can be found amongst second tier New Zealand players.

T7

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Re: 6 Nations

#476968

Postby Pendrainllwyn » January 28th, 2022, 9:59 pm

didds wrote:Like Italy have since the year 2000 ?

didds

No. Not like that. That's why I am suggesting promotion and relegation. Someone else deserves a chance.

Pendrainllwyn

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Re: 6 Nations

#477418

Postby didds » January 31st, 2022, 8:28 am

Pendrainllwyn wrote:
didds wrote:Like Italy have since the year 2000 ?

didds

No. Not like that. That's why I am suggesting promotion and relegation. Someone else deserves a chance.

Pendrainllwyn



Im still not following.

If Italy haven't improved in 20+ years, I really don't see how anybody else will in three. Im not protecting Italy - I just don't see the value in providing another sacrificial lamb. The real situation is that despite their best efforts, WR and European Rugby generally has for all the best of intentions created a problem. Where Italy arent good enough for tier 1, but too good for tier 2. I dont have any answers, but trying more of the same is unlikely to change anything. Isnt the definition of madness trying the same thing and expecting a different result.? Italy haven't beaten a tier 1 nation since 2016, and haven't won a 6N game since 2015. The last time Italy played Georgia Italy won easily. Georgia beats everybody else in tier 2 easily.

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Re: 6 Nations

#477446

Postby Pendrainllwyn » January 31st, 2022, 10:13 am

Thanks for calling me mad. You are probably right. :lol:

Your points are valid. The question for me is whether you want to try and expand the game or not. Rugby has done a pretty terrible job in my opinion. If you look at soccer they have invited weaker teams into both the World Cup qualifying tournaments and the World Cup Finals itself (few would say the qualifiers were designed to select the best 32 teams for the 2018 World Cup finals). Same for the Euros. I don't like the uncompetitive matches it has produced but it has been good for the game overall in my opinion and consequently a price worth paying. It has improved popularity of the game around the world and there are players from many countries playing in foreign leagues such as the premiership.

So what to do?
One option is to go back to 5 Nations which would improve competitiveness but will not help expand the game.
A second options are to keep it at 6 and let Italy hog the sixth slot.
The third option is to let another nation get tier 1 experience. I agree that a team replacing Italy is unlikely to bridge the quality gap with a tenure of a few years but they are even less likely if they never get the chance to participate or only get one year before getting relegated again. Why should Italy get 20 years and the next team only 1?

Anyway, I would go with the third option but completely understand why you and many others would prefer another.

Pendrainllwyn

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Re: 6 Nations

#477447

Postby Pendrainllwyn » January 31st, 2022, 10:19 am

I should have also added that in my proposal I said
Pendrainllwyn wrote:I would have the winner of the 2nd tier play the last placed Six Nation side away from home. If they win that then they should get promoted to the Six Nations.
so if Italy is much better than the best placed side in Tier 2 they would win the playoff match and retain their place in the 6 Nations. But at least they would be required to prove it.

Pendrainllwyn

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Re: 6 Nations

#477471

Postby didds » January 31st, 2022, 11:36 am

Pendrainllwyn wrote:I should have also added that in my proposal I said
Pendrainllwyn wrote:I would have the winner of the 2nd tier play the last placed Six Nation side away from home. If they win that then they should get promoted to the Six Nations.
so if Italy is much better than the best placed side in Tier 2 they would win the playoff match and retain their place in the 6 Nations. But at least they would be required to prove it.

Pendrainllwyn



I dont disagree at all with your points really. And TBH would prefer the play off scenario over "definite" prom/relegation (which the other 5N teams wont vote for anyway I doubt cos one day it might be them).

the problem with the playoff scenario is then scheduling it and extending national team windows for "deginite" availability of players for a full strength squad rather than those whose clubs allow them to play... Unless it happens after sesason end but that is possibly a problem for continuity within squads - though without a 2nd tier comp running in tandem calendar wise you ,may have that ring rusty v battle hardened situation anyway of course.

didds

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Re: 6 Nations

#477964

Postby BigB » February 2nd, 2022, 9:28 am

Incidentally I watched some of Toulouse v Racing at the weekend and Toulouse had DuPont/Ntamack playing so I don't know what has happened to the reported big covid issue in the France squad they had last week. They were both allegedly out with covid!!

Mr Edwards may have brought them a harder edge, off the pitch as well as on it.

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Re: 6 Nations

#478175

Postby unperplex » February 2nd, 2022, 10:13 pm

In view of what BigB says, am I being too cynical when I observe it is Italy whom France are playing on Sunday (who may not be seen as a big obstacle ) and might this be an excuse to rest some star players ? Of course France would be quite free not to select their star players if this is what they want……

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Re: 6 Nations

#478626

Postby gryffron » February 4th, 2022, 5:12 pm

Argentina? Who have the same best-of-the-rest problem in the Southern Hemisphere. Maybe we need a global second division. Fiji? Tonga?

Gryff


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