Yep, good performance . Big test next week but we look solid.

Does anyone know who won man of the match in the France v England match yesterday?

Impossible to judge Wales based on yesterday; but good to have such a strong Irish performance under their belt heading into it. Bring it on.

If Priestland continues to kick the ball away continuously, then Ireland will win ��

Italy are certanly not whipping boys now so the scoreline itself v Italy is not solely the performance these days.

Italy are going into away games nowadays like the other 5 teams trying to win them rather than just trying to avoid a heavy defeat.

There used to be one shown at 230, then you got highlights at 430 for about 20-25 mins. I suspect you are right about the regional thing.

Way back then there was no chance they could play 3 games one after the other on the same day the way they often do today.

Some of the venues back then i.e. Lansdowne Road, Murrayfield and Twickenham had no floodlights so back then they could only kick off at 2.30pm, and the teams had to remain on the pitch at half time for only 10 minutes break to ensure the match was completed before sunset.

I think it's unfairly disrespectful to Italy for people to say Wales produced a terrible performance because they failed to win by a much bigger margin.

None of the Welsh players willl have expected to thrash Italy yesterday. They expected a much tougher contest and much closer scoreline than many of the people watching expected.

Didn't last then! That last try was embarrassing, as bad as the first try England conceded!

Absolutely ridiculous to take off Care at that point in the match when he'd begun to dominate play from both the set pieces and broken play. I don't understand the need for a fixed substitution rotation to be honest, not outside of the forwards, and certainly not at a point where you're not in total control of the game.

Have to laugh scornfully at Inverdale for having to apologise for describing the current Davis Cup Tennis match as USA v England.

thanks for that - i remember as a child asking my dad why it was that a side got a weekend off or a side didn't play for 2 weeks on the trot.

I'd forgotten twickenham didn't have floodlights, but do recall the short h/t with sides on the piches. also were there not times when no game was shown live even though there were matches on? I *think* ire v fra in the 1970's and 1980's used to get the Fra v ITA treatment nowadays

No one knows?

Huget.

Although it should have been Nyanga by a fair margin.

Thank you, my money was on Danny Care..

Agree, he was back to world class... to be honest I'm not sure he ever dipped and I find it hard to think that the coaching team kept leaving him out.

Has anyone seen the pictures from the changing room after the game? French and English packs sharing a laugh and chatting about the game... that is why I love Rugby!

What Wales are discovering is that winning rugby isn't necessarily pretty rugby.

Welsh rugby has gone from a flair based rugby with skills and pace at the forefront to attritional rugby with a team full of monoliths and 1 little fella who can kick.

They produce the odd game where they play good rugby but I would say now they are probably the most boring one dimentional team in world rugby. Italy played the far more exciting rugby yesterday. The game plan is:
1)set piece
2)Roberts coming back on the crash.
3)ruck ball with some picks.
4)a big forward(hibbard) coming round the corner.
5)Big winger comes inside and takes at pace
6)return to no:2
7)repeat until Roberts gets injured.

They opt for the low possession counter and penalty game. Kick to the opposition and let them make the mistakes.

It wins games and its amazing how Welsh fans are happy to accept it when they spent the whole of the late 90's and early 2000's criticising England who played exactly the same game plan.

Nice to see you here, patsy Excellent point.


Not all Welsh fans are happy with it, far from it. Just because we celebrate a win doesn't mean we can't see the flaws in how we got there. No-one I've spoken to about it has said anything other than what a boring game it was to watch, and how we need to change the way we play as it's becoming clear that our opponents are learning quickly how to counteract our game.

I can't imagine us winning over Ireland this week, but as a country we tend to embrace the Irish so if we're going to lose to anyone...

To be fair Wales were so bad back in those days we had to take any crumb of comfort we could find. The fact that we could occasionally get the ball to Ieuan Evans and watch him work his magic while for England the ball never got past number 10 was about all we had.

At least Wales are winning these days. I'd much rather watch the team plod through Gatland's gameplan and come out with a win than fling it all over the place out of some sense of patriotic duty and lose (followed by the inevitable and patronising 'plucky Wales' headlines in the papers).

That said, Wales are still in desperate need of a plan B (and maybe even plan C) and need to find two or three extra gears to consistently compete all all levels. That and at least some semblance of depth at 3, 8 and 9.

Im not sure this Ireland v Wales game is going to be a love in. I think this is the most potentially explosive game in the 6 nations. Lot of animosity facing Wales from the Irish team. I think this is the most exciting game of the 6 nations. Its certainly the one I have been looking forward to the most. If Wales can withstand the storm that is almost certainly going to come at them then they might be able to knick it.

Burgess to switch codes?

Daily Mail seems to think so


Dunno if this will work or not, also seems a bit too rushed for him to make RWC 2015 squad.

However I'm not against any league player converting over to union, time will tell if this works.

No changes for England starting XV, hopefully we wont get the same pre-planned substitutions

Agree on the 9 one... seemed daft when he was responsible for getting us back into the match.

Brave not sticking a wing on the bench with May's nose... but I guess he sees Brown above Aston in the wing pecking order.

Yeah that made no sense taking off Care, he was controlling the game. Lancaster can't even pretend it was an injury and yet says that the decision wasn't pre-planned (how does that work?)
---
more team news, Scotland drop Brown

Why do you think it would work? The history of forwards swapping codes is very poor. If the RFU wants to spend money on league talent it sould be on outside backs.