Wall of Mouths

England don’t know how to play heads up rugby. Aviva Premiership is not the prettiest of leagues.
Scotland can’t score tries.
Tim Visser won’t make a massive difference - they still won’t score many tries
No, Ireland can’t win the 6N. We’re over-rated. Wales or France for me.
Stevie Ferris has been fit pretty much since before Xmas and has been on great form for Ulster. I hope Ireland don’t flog him during the 6N
Italy are improving. After hearing about how England & Scotland played today, they may even beat one of those two teams.

As for the ‘moral victory’, it’s like saying “If my auntie had balls…” - it’s not the case. You can only play what is in front of you!!

Bloody hell, didn’t think I’d get any replies in this thread!

Cave is injured, not that Kidney would have selected him as with Tuohy (and Marshall), they don’t play in red or blue so not much chance - conservative fecker that kidney is!

Didn’t see any rugby yesterday but off to pub in a bit for Wales-Ireland

What.A.Game!
Definite red for B.Davis, real conflicting emotions for that last kick by 1/2p: bit harsh penalty (probably correct by the letter of the law but I’d have been pissed if it was given against me) so wanted him to miss, then the crowd start booing and I’m thinking ‘go on, knock it over’.
Best game of the weekend, best game I’ve seen for awhile actually.

Don’t think Nevin offers any more than Mcfadden from what I’ve seen, Cave is one for the future though that’s for sure. Also re. Irish scrum halves since Stringer making a few howlers seems par for the course when they put on the green shirt - Reddan, O’Leary and Boss have all had their moments (intercept passes thrown without looking etc), Murray looks good so far so hopefully it won’t happen to him but I think Marshall has shown enough this season to have been in the Wolfhounds.
David Wallace has been a big miss for Ireland, O’Brien is excellent but isn’t a 7, totally agree regarding international teams needing one to compete nowadays.
Leinster might win the HC, certainly the team to beat, Munster will fancy their chances though (Gutted to see them beat my team Northampton with that ROG 85 minute 500 phase drop goal at Thomond park in the opening HEC game, they never give up and it really knocked our confidence in trying to play a more expansive game so we’ve reverted to type and other teams have worked that one out and the rest of our season has been shit)
Most teams in the AP aren’t that pretty, but Gloucester and Harlequinns are, they both play heads up rugby and have both beaten Toulouse this season, Sarries on the other hand are the most boring team in the history of rugby.

Murray is quality and improving with every game. A lot of poor performances last week - Need 3 or 4 new faces for Saturday but that wont happen. Thought D’Arcy and Bowe were particularly poor. Think McFadden would be good at 12

O’Callaghan spent most of the game at the breakdown on the floor with his hands on the ball (mostly on wales ball) while Barnes called ‘release - release - release!’ for about 5 seconds and never penalised him or anyone else for it, so did O’Brien, and so did Tupric for the whole of the second half (Warburton is scarily good enough that if he was doing it it for that long I never noticed and I was looking!), with a different ref all 3 would have been pinged and spent time in the bin, good playing of the ref from both teams I thought as that’s what you have to do.

Off topic: I’ve just watched some of the Ulster press conference on the BBC website with Humphreys basically publicly knifing Mclaughlin IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEASON! While Ulster are still in the HEC and can make the playoffs in the Rabbid - WTF? I couldn’t watch all of it, Mclaughlin is basically a destroyed man and is still answering questions as best he can, if Humphreys wants to appoint a new coach it’s up to him but to do thisd in the middle of the season beggars belief - if next season doesn’t go well he’d better have the decency to resign.

To be honest Fiona if he’d gone at the end of the tournament I’d agree but this all stinks of Andy Robinson throwing him to the wolves to save his own arse, especially his comment of “It’s never an easy decision to make, but I feel Dan has made the right decision and thank him for his contribution over the years.”. As AR is the one who picked him time after time and Parks stood up and played every time he was asked to the statement of feeling Parks made the right decision after 1 game is pretty shite, but I’m becoming less and less impressed with AR lately.

I didn’t realise that - I tend to catch up on the news every couple of days. Dan Parkes should have stuck to his guns and retired at the end of the WC - he made too many mistakes there and the 6 nations has just made things worse for him. Hopefully, he’ll still have a rugby career outside of the international arena.

France v Ireland has been called off :-(.
I think Italy played their socks off today - so close and yet so far for them!