England Women continued their dominance from last season, as they smashed Scotland in their opening Six Nation match. Scotland Women 0-47 England Women. England scored nine tries as they blooded new players but still played with fluidity. Both Katherine Merchant and Michaela Staniford (who was named player of the match), got a brace. Whilst Rowena Burnfield, Marlie Packer, … [Read more...]
Ireland lose a nail-biter – Ireland 21-23 Wales
Ireland opened their Six Nations campaign with a narrow loss to Wales. This was a classic Six Nations match as the lead constantly changed hands and many sub plots were played out, not least it looking like Wales would lose due to a missed kick in front of the posts. The early pressure was all Wales but they could not convert the pressure to points and so it was Ireland who … [Read more...]
Autumn IRB Rankings will effect 2015 RWC Seedings
We read pundits talking about building towards the next Rugby World Cup in 2015. This also often has them saying that teams do not necessarily need to win but must get onto a development curve. Well in fact winning match's is more important than many think as the seeding for the next World Cup will be built around the IRB rankings of the 12 automatic qualifiers from Rugby … [Read more...]
Scotland conjure a loss – Scotland 6-13 England
Stuart Lancaster's England opened their Six Nations with a win at Murrayfield. Scotland who had the bulk of possession and territory continued their abysmal record of being unable to convert all this possession into tries and paid the price. In an error strewen first half Scotland shaded it 6-3 with two Dan Parks penalties to one from Owen Farrell. In the second half … [Read more...]
France open Six Nations with win – France 30-12 Italy
Philippe Saint-Andre opened his tenure as France Coach with a solid win against Italy in a freezing Stade de France. The victory was not perhaps as easy as the score-line implies as Italy competed in all phases, but never looked as if they could breakdown the solid French defence. At half time France led by 15-6 thanks to tries from Aurelin Rougerie and Julien Malzieu, with … [Read more...]