Ironically, last season, Super League went back to promotion and relegation.

Well, actually, that's half true. They had the relegation, of London Broncos and Bradford Bulls. This season they're bringing the promotion back, with a convoluted system of 'splitting' the Super League and the Championship, into 3 divisions of 8 teams and having 'play offs' to determine various champions.

You can counter that by saying that the fixtures are weekly in a World Cup.Where as the 6nations or Rugby championship has gaps between games of more than one week in their duration.We also see the nations who aren't invited to the top level annual tournaments raise their game at World Cups.As seen in victories by Tonga, Samoa and Fiji across the history of the competition against those ranked higher beforehand.

Winning a World Cup likely means you are going to have to beat one of the two historical powerhouses in New Zealand and South Africa. I don't think any of the RWC winners have fluked to victory.They beat what is in front of them across a whole tournament.Perhaps on paper, NZ looked to be the best in the world going into the 1995 final but they weren't good enough to get past the Boks on the day.

Is this the first 6 nations when there is more than one two week gap between fixtures?

Happens every year

In the early 6 nations there used to be a two week gap after every round

Unless their food was poisoned before the final

Ah yes.A waitress called Suzie wasn't it (allegedly).

Somebody needs to check if she's been living in luxury provided by the South African government for the past twenty years

Exeter bought Leeds shares.


Originally there was a single class of share for the members of the First Division Rugby and then the Premiership. These shares conferred voting rights and a share of the income of the company that is PRL and that on ceasing to be a qualifying member(bust or relegated) then the shares were reallocated to an entity of the boards choosing, normally the newly promoted club.

This nice simple structure was then changed to three classes of shares: A, B and C. B shares granted voting rights and transferred away from you as soon as you were relegated, A shares were for income distribution and conferred no voting rights. These shares are reallocated at the direction of the company to whoever they want on a club ceasing to be a member of the Premiership. Once relegated, for each season out of the premiership a club surrenders 5 A shares back to PRL who then allocated them to the promoted club until such point as the relegated club had none. A club outside the Premiership was entitled to no benefit from the A shares.

This structure was changed yet again in 2005 removed C shares and introduced P "Income" shares and P "Capital" shares. It also created CP "income" and CP "capital", if a club have these at the start of the season then they convert into their equivalent P share.

The B shares determine the directorship of premier rugby. The P "Capital" shares are the main vote granting shares. The AoA say that P shares [capital or income] can be transferred at a price per share determined by the seller if the seller so wishes, in a particular order: B shareholders without P shares, then other B shareholders in proportion to their existing holding and then to PRL itself. Oddly there is no reference to there being a provision for a forced sale under arbitration, but I guess this may have been the result in a change to the AoA that I haven't seen.

All this means that P Capital shares are about voting rights, the B shares grant director positions, the original A shares still seem to exist as an income distribution mechanism modified by the P Income shares. It was always said that Leeds sold the income shares and so I have assumed that Capital shares were retained. Perhaps that wasn't so (in which case I apologise), I was certainly under the impression that Leeds had 'ring-fenced' (oh happy phrase) the money they received from Exeter for their shares but from reading the Leeds board that appears not to be the case and it's gone towards paying off a previous director. In which case Leeds/Yorkshire have both sold the family silver and obtained no benefit from the proceeds. And maybe sold their voting rights as well.

Wayne Barnes after being given Wales v Ireland - balance now tipped majorly in Wales favour ..

I'm beginning to worry more and more about this one by the day

A lad I was talking to told me he'd be more worried about Wales if they lost to France. I wasn't far off suggesting medical attention for him!! Wales winning could not have been worse for us

- Wales now can still win championship
- They are a team that thrive on momentum like no other I've seen before. They are always vulnerable in the first match or two but once they get a win or two under their belts they become seriously dangerous.
- Motivation. You cannot seriously tell me Wales would be 100% motivated for this if they had lost to France. In a RWC year it'd be much easier down tools try out a few new systems perhaps and play it around a bit more. I still to this day am not convinced we would have beaten a Welsh team playing for a Grand Slam or championship in 09. Granted that Ireland team was much more beatable than this one
- They will NOT want to lose both their home matches.

In saying that I fancy Ireland to sneak it but it certainly won't be easy. The last two years we played Wales at the perfect time, I'd actually say week 4 is in fact the worst time to play them. Especially away

Pretty do or die stuff though. Ireland win and are very much on for a Grand Slam, while being considered one of the favourites for RWC. Ireland lose, and never mind no slam, there'll also be no triple crown and very likely no championship either. The doubters will be out in force and suddenly everyone will be questioning Ireland's big match bottle and are they cut out for winning big matches in the RWC

Should be a fascinating game

Why do you say that?

Because he is a poor ref .. Among the worst I have seen at scrum time - just seems to be guesswork most of the time.

Can see the Welsh getting a few decisive home decisions..

Jeez very harsh on Kruis to be dropped. He's had a better campaign than Attwood for me. To not have him even on the bench is a very tough call. Feel for him

Thought he could have retained Goode too, he was best player v Ireland and it would give him confidence. Brown has nothing to prove at this stage and it's a game England should win handy anyway

We did lose a few crucial line outs. At least Lancaster is prepared to make the tough decisions unlike our cricket and football managers. Goode did have an excellent game , but he was only a stand in for Brown

Team news

England: M Brown (Harlequins); A Watson (Bath), J Joseph (Bath), L Burrell (Northampton), J Nowell (Exeter); G Ford (Bath), B Youngs (Leicester); J Marler (Harlequins), D Hartley (Northampton), D Cole (Leicester), D Attwood (Bath), C Lawes (Northampton), J Haskell (Wasps), C Robshaw (Harlequins, capt), B Vunipola (Saracens).

Replacements: T Youngs (Leicester), M Vunipola (Saracens), K Brookes (Newcastle), G Parling (Leicester), T Wood (Northampton), R Wigglesworth (Saracens), D Cipriani (Sale), B Twelvetrees (Gloucester).

Scotland: Stuart Hogg (Glasgow Warriors); Dougie Fife (Edinburgh), Mark Bennett (Glasgow Warriors), Matt Scott (Edinburgh), Tommy Seymour, Finn Russell (both Glasgow Warriors), Greig Laidlaw (captn) (Gloucester); Alasdair Dickinson (Gloucester), Ross Ford (Edinburgh), Euan Murray (Glasgow Warriors), Jim Hamilton (Saracens), Jonny Gray (Glasgow Warriors), Robert Harley (Glasgow Warriors), Blair Cowan (London Irish) David Denton (Edinburgh).

Replacements: Fraser Brown, Ryan Grant (both Glasgow Warriors), Geoff Cross (London Irish), Tim Swinson (Glasgow Warriors), Johnnie Beattie (Montpellier), Adam Ashe (Glasgow Warriors), Sam Hidalgo-Clyne and Greig Tonks (both Edinburgh)

Ireland: 15 Rob Kearney, 14 Tommy Bowe, 13 Jared Payne, 12 Robbie Henshaw, 11 Simon Zebo, 10 Jonathan Sexton, 9 Conor Murray, 8 Jamie Heaslip, 7 Sean O'Brien, 6 Peter O'Mahony, 5 Paul O'Connell (c), 4 Devin Toner, 3 Mike Ross, 2 Rory Best, 1 Jack McGrath

Replacements: 16 Sean Cronin, 17 Cian Healy, 18 Martin Moore, 19 Iain Henderson, 20 Jordi Murphy, 21 Eoin Reddan, 22 Ian Madigan, 23 Felix Jones

France: 15 Scott Spedding, 14 Yoann Huget, 13 Gaël Fickou, 12 Maxime Mermoz, 11 Noa Nakaitaci, 10 Camille Lopez, 9 Sébastian Tillous-Borde, 8 Loann Goujon, 7 Bernard le Roux, 6 Thierry Dusautoir (c), 5 Yoann Maestri, 4 Alexandre Flanquart, 3 Nicolas Mas, 2 Guilhem Guirado, 1 Eddy Ben Arous

Replacements: 16 Benjamin Kayser, 17 Rabah Slimani, 18 Vincent Debaty, 19 Romain Taofifenua, 20 Damien Chouly, 21 Rory Kockott, 22 Jules Plisson, 23 Mathieu Bastareaud

Lawes had to come in. But I'd have left out Attwood

You're right of course about goode being just a stand in but in my opinion anyway it's a toss up of a call in general, haven't been wowed at all by Brown since last 6n bar in patches. Goode has impressed me big time anytime I've seen him recently. Playing the rugby of his life

Goode isn't even on the bench, bad luck on him. I wonder if Lancaster will use Cipriani this time. Should be a comfortable victory for England , I see Scotland have made a few changes

Hope so.

He criminally underrates him though, the fact he got no gametime v Ireland and Wales would suggest no RWC place I'd imagine. I don't for one second believe he wouldn't have thrown Owen Faz into the action in both matches

Yeah England should win cushy, I can see Scotland rolling over tbh if England get some early tries. They'll be trying to save themselves for one last hurrah at home in Murrayfield v Ireland

Scotland may have lost all their matches so far, but they've been close to winning all of them. They've not been outclassed by any of the teams and basically paid for not taking their chances.

I think it's unlikely they'll throw in the towel even if things are going badly, also I'm not convinced England will steam roller Scotland. I hope to see a win on Saturday, but I'm not expecting it to be easy.

Agree 100%... they have had everyone tight, and although the Italy loss would have damaged morale they always up their game for England and a victory against us would be like them winning the championship.

On the Cipriani note, I don't think it's that Lancaster doesn't rate him... I think he just wants Ford to have as many minutes as possible. I think he knows Ford is the man for the world cup and every minute he gets at test level is valuable. He'll keep him on as long as possible.

Wales: 15 Leigh Halfpenny, 14 George North, 13 Jonathan Davies, 12 Jamie Roberts, 11 Liam Williams, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Rhys Webb, 8 Taulupe Faletau, 7 Sam Warburton (c), 6 Dan Lydiate, 5 Alun-Wyn Jones, 4 Luke Charteris, 3 Samson Lee, 2 Scott Baldwin, 1 Gethin Jenkins.

Replacements: 16 Richard Hibbard, 17 Rob Evans, 18 Aaron Jarvis, 19 Jake Ball, 20 Justin Tipuric, 21 Mike Phillips, 22 Rhys Priestland, 23 Scott Williams.

Yeah Ireland won all their matches in 09 with each one of them very tight so I guess they were also close to losing all of them too? Nonsense you either win or you don't. And not winning at home to Italy is embarrassing. France are a jokeshop at the minute too. Wales never really bring their best away from home

As an Irishman I don't have to worry about this 'talking up my own side in case I jinx them' or 'talking up the opposition in the hope I'm wrong about them' craic, so I'll confidently go for a cushy England win and I don't see them holding back either, they'll be looking to really scoff up the Points Difference

Do they?

Don't have the stats off hand but I recall some massacres over the years in Twickenham? They might have won a couple in Murrayfield alright but Scotland are a much different prospect away from home and not in a good way

I don't care about jinxing England either. I don't particularly take England wins for granted because that's arrogant, so the Welsh, Irish or whoever else tells us English supporters.

I'm not talking up the opposition and hoping I'm wrong, I'm just disagreeing with the assertion that Scotland will be steamrollered (considering no team has done that to them during this 6N).

Who knows maybe I'm totally wrong and Scotland will lose by 50 points, nothing I've seen so far suggests this will actually happen.