You’d be forgiven for thinking it was happy hour in the Stade de France last Saturday with the amount of cheap shots that the French were sending Ireland’s way. The French hooker, Guilhem Guirado, gave Dave Kearney a “Toulon Clearout” (known elsewhere as “High tackle ref!”) which not only broke the ice but also Dave’s shoulder. The real surprise though is that Johnny Sexton was still upright by the end of the game given how many cheap shots he had. Yoann Maestri gave him a “Backdoor Shoulder Barge”, a highly illegal cheap shot which would normally get you kicked out of the bar yet Jaco Peyper saw fit just to give him a warning for some reason. Humour aside, I’m not wearing emerald tinted glasses and am well aware that Irish players have somehow escaped deserved bans in the recent past for dirty play but for Maestri to do something which according to the citing commission was “just short of a red card” and not even have to leave the pitch for ten minutes is a bit ridiculous. Anyway, it was a dismal afternoon both in terms of the weather and the standard of play where Ireland somehow managed to go in at half time 9 – 3 ahead despite having lost three of their starting XV before half an hour was up and not breaking anything bar their own bodies. As is tradition however, we ultimately surrendered the lead to France in the 70th minute after three reset scrums on our own try line eventually resulted in Maxime Medard scooting over to score the match’s sole try. The Irish cause was further hindered when at the next restart, Irish replacement outhalf Ian Madigan booted the ball straight into touch allowing the French to regain possession, stick the ball up the jumper and see out the game. Quelle dommage as they say.
A far more entertaining spectacle was up next when Scotland travelled to the Millennium (not the Principality on principle) Stadium to take on Wales and try to break their losing duck both against Wales (8 losses in a row) and in general. Alas, it was only seven minutes before Wales scored their first try with scrum half Gareth Davies grabbing a loose ball and sprinting 50m for the corner. At this point, I feared Scotland were in for a rough day but then six minutes later they scored a lovely try through Tommy Seymour after Finn Russell sent a lovely chip over the Welsh defence. 7 – 7 game on and what a game it was; a few penalties and 42 minutes later, Scotland were leading 16 – 13 and maybe this time they’d do it. OK they’re under pressure on their own line but….shit, Jamie Roberts just scored. OK, it’s 20 – 16 but given how well they’re playing it’s not insurmountable…until an unforgiving North wind breezed through their defence. Yes George North unfortunately began to find his form again and in the 71st minute, side stepped several Scottish defenders and cantered down the pitch to put the result beyond doubt. Duncan Taylor would score for Scotland at the death but the final score was still 27 – 23 to Wales. It was also reported Jamie Roberts offloaded the ball at some point though I have yet to see video evidence of this.
And finally to England v Italy where even though most of us expected England to win, we didn’t expect it to be such a rout. Italy are perennial underdogs at this competition but even so, up until about the 55th minute, the score was still only 11 – 9 to England and I was hoping that I’d see what I’ve always wanted which is to see lots of really tight games and all the participating nations being of a similar level. However, England decided to spoil it when against the, by this point knackered, Italian team they scored four tries in the last 25 minutes, three of them through Jonathan Joseph and the fourth by Nipples Farrell leaving a rather flattering scoreline of 40 – 9. I suppose it’s good from an English revival perspective to come away from Rome with such a large points difference but the real test is in a month’s time against Wales because as the RWC showed, they are not in any way intimidated by playing in Twickenham. That’ll be when we see how far the Eddie Jones regime has come; for those wondering, I wholly expect an injury ravaged and quite frankly boring Irish team to get humped in Twickers in the next round.