If the coverage is anything like that of the French Top 14, I’d say we are in for a rough season. Sometimes its great. Tomorrow night there are two games live, ace! Live French rugby on a Wednesday, can’t say fairer than that. Last Friday however, I settled down to watch a live game as I had done the previous two weeks and was treated to live coverage of Little League Baseball. I’m not sure which was more frustrating, the fact that they were showing the game at 9.30 ‘unlive’ or that they had chosen Little League Baseball as its replacement. Is there a more ridiculous sport to televise Internationally? I can’t think of one off hand. It’s got to be the one sport that everyone who wants to watch is actually there, at the game? They must be, the stands looked packed.

That said, we don’t have much to lose. Sky seemed to focus entirely on the European Cup and leave us with the rapier like wit of Dean Ryan on Premiership weekends. This I won’t miss.

My personal favourite being sported by the South African replacement Hooker. For some reason the IRB aren’t using her image on their site, but if I do come across one I’ll be sure to post it here. It was the kind of spare tyre a darts player would have been proud of. Well done her I say.

The Rugby was fairly entertaining along with the coverage. I love it when Sky roll out their tried and tested methods on a relatively new sport. We were treated to a relative procession of former Internationals, who added a certain amount of entertainment, partucularly towards the end of the broadcast as the wind picked up and they got colder and more shivery by the minute.

The wind had a hell of an impact of the games too. Although being constantly advised what a magnificent ‘facility’ the Sussex Sport Park, I couldn’t help thinking the players might have wanted the pinnacle of their International careers to be played out somewhere without a constant buffeting wind.

Still fair play to the whole thing. I for one am looking forward to the rest of the tournament and am forever glad there still exists a strain of our great game where scrum halves can be nicknamed Cannonball.

Ireland: R Kearney (Leinster), S Horgan (Leinster), G Duffy (Connacht), F McFadden (Leinster), A Trimble (Ulster), R O’Gara (Munster) cpt, P Stringer (Munster); M Horan (Munster), S Cronin (Connacht), T Buckley (Munster), E O’Donoghue (Ulster), D Tuohy (Ulster), J Muldoon (Connacht), N Ronan (Munster), C Henry (Ulster).
Replacements: J Flannery (Munster), T Court (Ulster), M O’Driscoll (Munster), D Wallace (Munster), T O’Leary (Munster), J Sexton (Leinster), P Wallace (Ulster).

Barbarians: P Warwick, D Smith, C Lualala, S Rabeni, C Heymans, B James, P Mignoni, D Barnes, S Brits, C Johnston, J Thion, M O’Kelly, A Quinlan, G Smith, X Rush.
Replacements: B August, J White, R So’oialo, M Williams, B Kelleher, J-B Elissalde, F Estebanez or P Sackey

The old axis of Stringer and O’Gara could well ensure we see nothing of the potent talent further out. That said, if the Barbarians start anything like they did against England last week the opportunities might be too blatant to avoid.

Still, with a glass thats always half full, McFadden scoring first and an Ireland winning margain of 6-10 points is well worth a quid at 90/1, or more likely get evens on Shane Horgan rumbling over at any point. bet365 for the odds.

Imanol Harinordoquy
Mathieu Bastareaud
Morgan Parra
Thierry Dusautoir
Tommy Bowe
Shane Williams

Come on lads, show some imagination will you. Undoubtedly Harinordoquy and Parra deserve their places but the rest seem to hint that this list was made before the tournament. Shane Williams, as ever the hero of Wales, but has he had a better tournament than Poitrenaud? Tommy Bowe is in fine form but surely Earls or O’Leary are ahead of him thus far. As for Dusatoir and Bastareaud, just seems lazy when you compare them to Italy’s two try newcomer Canavosio.

Dyou not think?

An all too familiar sight

Just to get things straight, I’m a Hooker. I should say I was a Hooker really but the feeling never leaves you. So officially I’m a believer but I’m just bored of scrums. 

Scotland Vs England on the weekend was admittedly a total horse tranquiliser of a game. I dozed off for about ten minutes of the second  half and wished I’d slept through the lot, well at least the scrums.

• The idea of any sort of Hooking contest is long gone.
• They eat up valuable game time.
• You can win the Heineken Cup and Grand Slam with a rubbish one.

Don’t get me wrong I don’t think we should head down the league route with a flaccid leaning formality. In principle, scrums work. In fact last weekend showed as much, four tries were scored direct from scrums, at their best they tie in the forwards and allow for the flashy strike moves, bonza!

All to often though, they are the dullest of affairs. Six men barely managing to control the force of ten others all under the control of one other who in the main, baffles.

Arguably the scrum of the weekend was Ireland taking one against Wales having been camped on their own line for several minutes. Inspiring stuff undoubtedly. The scrum ended up in a heap, Heaslip picks up, Mr Joubert waves play on.  So if the side with the upper hand in the scrum has the ball and uses it the Ref waves play on. Seems perfectly acceptable but it isn’t like that all the time, hardly ever, never in fact.

I vote for radical change. A new kind of restart. I’m open to suggestions on what this could be. Rugby was a sport born out of another sport, so it couldn’t hurt to look around for a few suggestions, how about:

The Bastareaud Williams match up would be classic

One to launch strike moves from

We've already got the headguards

Any other suggestions more than welcome

Andwood or Jedand, either way they make a wonderful couple.

It seems so obvious now its in front of you doesn’t it. The shared penchant for hair dye, the overtight jeans/shorts. I’ve been racking my brains for the last couple of weeks as to why we hadn’t been told who Powell’s partner in crime was, how ever could I have been so blind?

From the looks of things, it should be a great partnership. Andy’s got himself a few weeks off and I can’t imagine a better place for him than acting as muscle for Jed or Wood. Likewise for the twin, we all knew the Spartans of the entertainment world Messrs Walsh & Cowell were never going to let both of them live. Sooner or later one of them was going to be let out into the forest to fight the wolves, now this one has Andy by his side. 

Although I consider this conclusive proof ( I was there after all) I appreciate some of you may still have your doubts so I have taken the liberty of enhancing the above photograph. Finally, with the help of digital technology, we can put this matter to bed, once and for all…

Conclusive Proof

I was so tempted I had a go myself

You've got to be in it to win it

Wales: Lee Byrne (Ospreys); Leigh Halfpenny (Cardiff Blues), James Hook (Ospreys), Jamie Roberts (Blues), Shane Williams (Ospreys); Stephen Jones (Scarlets), Richard Rees (Blues); Paul James, Huw Bennett, Adam Jones (Ospreys), Bradley Davies, Deiniol Jones (Blues), Jonathan Thomas (Ospreys), Martyn Williams (Blues), Ryan Jones (Ospreys, capt) Replacements: Ken Owens (Scarlets), Rhys Gill (Saracens), Luke Charteris (Newport Gwent Dragons), Sam Warburton (Blues), Mike Phillips (Ospreys), Andrew Bishop (Ospreys) , Tom Shanklin (Blues).

France: Clement Poitrenaud (Toulouse); Benjamin Fall (Bayonne), Mathieu Bastareaud (Stade Francais), Yannick Jauzion (Toulouse), Alexis Palisson (Brive); Francois Trinh-Duc (Montpellier), Morgan Parra (Clermont Auvergne); Thomas Domingo (Clermont Auvergne), William Servat (Toulouse), Nicolas Mas (Perpignan), Lionel Nallet (Racing-Metro), Pascal Pape (Stade Francais), Thierry Dusautoir (Toulouse, capt), Julien Bonnaire (Clermont Auvergne), Imanol Harinordoquy (Biarritz).Replacements: Dimitri Szarzewski (Stade Francais), Jean-Baptiste Poux (Toulouse), Julien Pierre (Clermont Auvergne), Alexandre Lapandry (Clermont Auvergne), Frederic Michalak (Toulouse), David Marty (Perpignan), Julien Malzieu (Clermont Auvergne).

Well, well or oui, oui. This has got game of the tournament written all over it. Gatland has thankfully managed to keep his gob shut all week and with the emotive victory over Scotland behind them Wales may be in with a chance. They will have to raise their game considerably though, entertaining as it was, they should have lost a fortnight ago. Alongside of this they need the French to be somewhere way beneath the level that they played at last time out. Which, thankfully for the Welsh, they may well be.

Tip: Double Result: France-Wales 8/1 @bet365

Italy Vs Scotland 13:30, 27/02/2010

Italy (Squad): Matias Aguero (Saracens) Mauro Bergamasco (Stade Francais) Mirco Bergamasco (Stade Francais) Riccardo Bocchino (Femi CZ Rovigo-) Marco Bortolami (Gloucester RFC)Gonzalo Canale (Clermont-Auvergne)Pablo Canavosio (MPS Viadana)Martin Castrogiovanni (Leicester Tigers) Lorenzo Cittadini (Benetton Treviso)Carlo Antonio Del Fava (MPS Viadana) Paul Derbyshire (Petrarca Padova)Gonzalo Garcia (Benetton Treviso) Quintin Geldenhuys (MPS Viadana)Leonardo Ghiraldini (Benetton Treviso) – captain Craig Gower (Bayonne) Andrea Masi (Racing Metro Paris)Luke McLean (Benetton Treviso) Fabio Ongaro (Saracens) Salvatore Perugini (Bayonne) Kaine Paul Robertson (MPS Viadana) Alberto Sgarbi (Benetton Treviso) Josh Sole (MPS Viadana) Tito Tebaldi (Plusvalore Gran Parma) Alessandro Zanni (Benetton Treviso)

Scotland: H Southwell (Stade Francais); S Danielli (Ulster), M Evans (Glasgow), G Morrison (Glasgow), S Lamont (Scarlets); D Parks (Glasgow), C Cusiter (Glasgow, capt); A Jacobsen (Edinburgh), R Ford (Edinburgh), E Murray (Northampton), J Hamilton (Edinburgh), A Kellock (Glasgow), K Brown (Glasgow), J Barclay (Glasgow), J Beattie (Glasgow).
Replacements: S Lawson (Gloucester), A Dickinson (Gloucester), N Hines (Leinster), A Strokosch (Gloucester), M Blair (Edinburgh), P Godman (Edinburgh), N De Luca (Edinburgh).

The Scot’s must see this as their chance to shine and deservedly so. I can see nothing more than a healthy victory for them.

Tip: Handicap Scotland -11.5 19/10 @bet365

England Vs Ireland 16:00 27/02/2010

England: D Armitage (London Irish); Mark Cueto (Sale), Mathew Tait (Sale), Riki Flutey (Brive), Ugo Monye (Harlequins); Jonny Wilkinson (Toulon), Danny Care (Harlequins); Tim Payne (Wasps), Dylan Hartley (Northampton), Dan Cole (Leicester), Simon Shaw (Wasps), Steve Borthwick (Saracens, captain), James Haskell (Stade Francais), Lewis Moody (Leicester), Nick Easter (Harlequins).
Replacements: Lee Mears (Bath), David Wilson (Bath), Louis Deacon (Leicester), Joe Worsley (Wasps), Paul Hodgson (London Irish), Toby Flood (Leicester), Ben Foden (Northampton).

Ireland: G Murphy (Leicester), T Bowe (Ospreys), B O’Driscoll (Leinster) capt, G D’Arcy (Leinster), K Earls (Munster), J Sexton (Leinster), T O’Leary (Munster), C Healy (Leinster), R Best (Ulster), J Hayes (Munster), D O’Callaghan (Munster), P O’Connell (Munster), S Ferris (Ulster), D Wallace (Munster), J Heaslip (Leinster).Replacements: S Cronin (Connacht), T Buckley (Munster), L Cullen (Leinster), S Jennings (Leinster), E Reddan (Leinster), R O’Gara (Munster), A Trimble (Ulster)

The waiting is almost over. England come in after back to back victories Ireland with a disappointingly heavy defeat, it really could go either way. I’m not a subscriber to the view that England have a particularly poor selection of players just that they are playing poorly together, playing poorly but winning also. 

Twickenham is an interesting choice for Sextons 6Nations debut, particularly lining up alongside the much maligned O’Leary. Deccie the Leg is so ever so keen on his panel you might think he would excercise this theory at 9. I’m certainly not going to question his judgement on this or Murphy’s inclusion juts hope that come 6pm saturday I leave Twickenham with a smile on my face, I’ve seen them play here 6 times and have yet to see an Irish victory, I’m not sure I could take another loss.

Tip: Ireland by 1-5 points 5/1 @bet365

The following suggests they were on the hunt for more than just breakfast:

Get your motor running...

Sorry I couldn’t resist. What was he thinking?