Oh dear Alfie (Gareth Thomas)! The rugby world had no problems accepting your sexuality but going into the Celebrity Big Brother house.

I love the show but for him, it will be very good, He received a lovely positive welcome and I reckon he could go very far!

I've just heard a bit on the radio that there is a proposal to have a world club/ regional championship. Uk teams playing sides from South Africa /NZ/ Australia would be a fantastic idea. I hope this can be arranged.

I have never watched Big Brother , but best of luck to Alfie

Alfie should have done Strictly or Dancing On Ice - at least that would be challenging & a good use of time. I imagine he'll be bored rigid sitting around in a house full of muppets for weeks.

RFU Announce Senior and Saxon EPS

The local Sarries fans will be happy to have some of their players "finally" recongised by England.

Very very sad news for Sale fans and RU in general. Former winger Selorm Kuadey has died aged only 24. No official cause of death published yet but from most reports it appears to have been self inflicted

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugb...n/16573838.stm

Disappointed to see Chris Ashton going to Saracens but at least Saints have good strength in depth for wingers.

I'm not sure what to think about this move

on the one hand I can understand the gripes that Saints fans have about how this has been dragging on

on the other, he is joining the current champions and hooking up with his best mate (Joel Tomkins). Plus he wants a new challenge

anyway makes for an interesting second half of the season

the secret of good comedy is of course timing

Today England are due to announce their captain for 6 nations

so............

Armitage suspended after arrest

even I'm finding it hard to defend England players, even if the RWC media storm was largely rubbish

It gets worse! I'm certainly not going to defend him , unlike the players in New Zealand.

Chris Robshaw is the new captain despite only having one cap against Argentina.

I don't think the one cap thing is all that bad, there's been other players who captained on their international debut.

I think the main problem might be that Robshaw isn't even guaranteed a starting place, but who know how well he'll do in the next 2 games
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anyway predictions for the weekend matches

France vs Italy - France by 20
Scotland vs England - Eng by 10
Ireland vs Wales - Wales by 6

I think England will lose.

France 33 -12 Italy
Scotland 12-9 England
Ireland 27-Wales15

My predictions are:

France 28-15 Italy
Scotland 15-12 England
Ireland 21-14 Wales

Comfortable win for France to get the 6 Nations underway

And off we go for the latest installment of the Calcutta Cup

The first 20 minutes have been awful. Riddled with mistakes!

England are absolutely woeful. Lucky to avoid the wooden spoon at this rate.

Very scrappy at Murrayfield

This first half is really dragging :yawn:

Very poor match overall

Hopefully the match in Dublin will be a lot better tomorrow

8 uncapped players in staring squad, fly half who hasnt played for country since 2008, of course it was going to be scrappy, but at least we won.

Not bad for a side that have trained together for 12 days. Scotland have been together for years and they wouldn't have scored if they'd still been playing now.

How many times did England threaten the try-line? Just the once but the difference is they made it count.

England were fortunate to win, but as usual Scotland just couldn't get a try. Has anyone ever had a worse game than Dan Parks.

You certainly couldn't criticise England for lack of effort and some of the guys gave outstanding performances , but the spark in the backs was missing. I thought Stuart Lancaster's decision to bring on all those new caps at once with England just narrowly ahead was a crazy gamble. It paid off , but he would have looked so foolish if England had lost.

Praise to the ref as well. That must be one of the very few games where the ref didn't just keep on penalising teams in turn at the scrum , and England can hardly ever have conceded so few penalties in a game.

To be honest, I think it's the right step. He wants this to be a new era, so he's bringing in a brand new squad, that's fine by. If it means we endure a scrappy six nations then so be it, I'll just be happy if the focus is on the rugby for once. New caps need to be blooded, if they come on and we lose, at least he's trying something new.


I thought the ref was poor. The scrums were embarrassing to watch. There were times when Scotland got a penalty that England should have got and vice versa. International refereeing is in the doghouse, yesterday was a good example of why.

I thought Italy played a lot better than the final score suggested, though France were clearly better side

whilst Scotland v England was unbelievable boring and yet I'm happy that England snuck out a win

Wales are looking good