Priestland and Hook should be the first choices going to South Africa, will be interesting to see who Gatland gets in as backup for those two

Phillips has had his day now

The current one.

Aye yeah - a "Feen" is Cork slang for a lad so we the same

I forgot in all the excitement earlier to say fair play to England for their effort in pushing us all the way ... Ireland and England have been on a totally different level to the rest in this championship, I said after the Eng v Ire match that one of the two would win it and that prediction was never in doubt.

This championship has set it up lovely for next year.. both could potentially peak together and fight out the 6 nations tooth and nail - and then of course there is the RWC, both Ireland and England showed how they can compete with NZ... England ran them close and we should have beat them in Dublin.

RWC Final of Ireland v England anyone? - now that would be a sight to behold


And finally - Major respect to Stuart Lancaster, its easy to show respect in victory but its shear class in defeat.

Congrats to Ireland. The game between them and France was a cracker. My heart was in my mouth when they went to TMO for the forward pass try at the end.

So true, England are anything but cocky!

Dunno why he took so long. Even in real time, it looked forward and one replay was enough to see it was but he wanted a number before commiting himself.

Congrats to Ireland. Worthy winners in Paris where England failed. Pleased for BOD...amazing career with so many highs and wonderful memories he has given to so many fans around the world.

Small margins though. England undone by the bounce of the ball and a little bit of brilliance against France. Missed out on a few points against Scotland and Italy which could have made the difference but it has been a largely positive tournament for England so I'm still pretty happy. We're playing some positive rugby, looking to move the ball through the hands from deep. Pleasing to see, but we need to tidy it up and work on accuracy as well as some scrum issues.

Hats off to Lancaster. He is a very likeable bloke and he has worked very hard to change the team ethic for England. Sincere and classy. Still think he needs to review the sub policy though. It backfired against France and didn't help against Italy. I get the feeling he just wanted to bring the whole bench on considering the match was done and dusted but it disrupted the team. Only Tuilagi made a positive impact and he came on for the wrong player. It's best to get these things ironed out now than a must win match in the RWC so as long as he learns from it, it's all good.

Mixed tournament for Wales. A couple of very disappointing results in between good and mediocre ones. If Gatland embraced a more expansive game plan along with the direct running from big ball carriers, you get the feeling that Wales would be very hard to stop. That is their problem though so I'm not gonna worry about that.

That RWC group is going to be something else though!

Congrats again to Ireland. They need to blood some new players soon and BOD's boots are going to be very difficult to fill. D'Arcy and POC are getting on too but under Schmidt (superb coach), I think they can push on to even greater things.

I've thoroughly enjoyed this 6Ns! Some matches may have been a little one sided on the scoreboards but the winners of those matches have deserved it and some other matches have been decided by the tiniest of margins.

Great stuff!

I watched the relevant games today, and was very impressed with the intensity

I still struggle to understand why in RU they transfer possession so readily. the don't do that in RL or NFL

so many times it comes back to bite them when teams recycle and score in the last possession.

Ireland nearly threw it away close to the end.

England should have won the Grand Slam. They were far superior to France in Paris but somehow threw the match away at the end.

But nobody will begrudge the Irish a Six Nations win, especially with it being O'Driscoll's last ever game.

Yes quite. England has been gracious in both victory and defeat this year, and everyone I've heard has been very fair and goodwilled.

The only one who can't help himself is John Inverdale, but then he is the ArchNobhead of Nobville.

England and Ireland were a cut above everyone else throughout, which made for a gripping finale, even though they were playing different teams.

... and of course for being the best, of which only the final tally can be the arbiter.

The UK edition of the Sunday Times leads with 'England denied as France gift Six Nations crown to O'Driscoll'

G is for 'gift', g is also for 'grapes', of the sour variety Stephen Jones.

Funnily enough the Irish edition says 'O'Driscoll gets perfect send-off as Ireland beat France to win title'

Bad journalism. Wouldn't wipe my arse with the Sunday Times anyway.

Not sure what he means by "gift" : France made it really hard for Ireland and nearly snatched it at the end (and he's ignoring the fact that England could have been masters of their own destiny with more points against Italy).

Pass me the bucket.

The rugby section in the Sunday Times is beyond awful. Jones is just an old fashioned WUM, particularly against the English, and Stuart Barnes still carries the persecution complex from England clearly not appreciating his skills as a player quite as much as he did.

Always makes me laugh when the London media do that. Pathetic, two faced idiots.

In a way, you've got to admire a headline that will

Piss the Irish off by implying it was gifted to them
Piss the French off by implying they handed it over without a fight
Piss the Scots and Welsh off by ignoring them completely
Piss the English off by making us look like sore losers.

I'm kind of surprised they didn't go with England celebrate their glorious triple crown win with 50 point exhibition game - Maybe saving that one for the Sun

I think it was Max Evans, but I'm struggling to find any mention of it in the post-match reports as they are, rightly, concentrating on Ireland's win and BOD's send-off.

If you look at the iplayer recording at 2:01:00 during the final scrum before the clock goes red, Cusiter takes a quick free kick and hands the ball on to Evans. Evans goes tearing off into Warbuton, who I think picks up his shoulder injury at the same time, and is left laying on the ground once the ball is recycled.

At game time 80:10 you see the physio laying next to the player signalling for a stretcher.

Can't think of anyone else it could be.

RTÉ (Irish Television) coverage of the final few moments in the match yesterday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFBg5NJCtSo still music to my ears

This says it's Max - http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/...oto/478906369#

Thanks for that. Have just watched the post-match press questions on the SRU site and there's no mention of Evans there as they pretty much concentrate on the Hogg red card. No mention of Evans on their Twitter account either so I can only assume it's not a major issue.

Hope Tim Visser is back next season and that Ross Ford has found his throwing hands again (or we can find a suitable replacement) as I think his lack of accuracy has led to a lot of lost opportunities and lost possession.

Nice one. I'm Welsh, and would just like to say after catching up on the post match stuff, Stuart Lancaster is a class act. Don't care about the 'Murdoch' press. Oh, and hope the Ireland fans haven't got too much of a banging hangover today.

Awesome 6N, whichever way the Ireland game ended would have meant a team topping the table on points difference from the team that actually beat it. Just shows how important home and away advantage is.

Credit to Ireland and England, both teams played superb stuff through the 6N and were a class apart. Really pleased for BOD to go out winning away again, he's a class apart.

Ireland have got to be hoping POC keeps taking what he's taking to last one more year, he's a difference maker. Sexton is very underrated (outside of Ireland), and he and Farrell are very similar.

I can only see Wales going one way, North, 1/2p and Davies remain class but no halfbacks, an ageing pack/front row does not bode well. Could be a difficult world cup.