Women's Six Nations - Final Round

[Danno]

Italy v Wales postponed to Sunday for big fiddler's funeral

Ireland's star No 8 Aiofe Wafer is injured and won't appear in the Scotland away fixture

England continue to rotate heavily. I'm not sure it's a great idea even if France have been blowing hot and cold this tournament. Kildunne has a minor hamstring complaint but then Aitchison, Kabeya, Packer, Packer, Breach, Scarrett don't get a start/spot. It can't be much good for cohesion on match day -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union ... 9pj95371go

England: Sing; Dow, Jones, Heard, MacDonald; Harrison, Hunt; Botterman, Atkin-Davies, Muir, Talling, Ward, Aldcroft (capt), Feaunati, Matthews.

Replacements: Cokayne, Clifford, Bern, Galligan, Burton, L Packer, Aitchison, Rowland.

France: Bourgeois; Grisez, M Menager, Vernier, Arbwy; Arbez, Bourdon; Brosseau, Bigot, Khalfaoui, M Feleu (capt), Fall-Raclot, Escudero, Champon, T Feleu.

Replacements: Riffonneau, Mwayembe, Bernadou, Zago, Berthoumieu, Maka, Chambon, Queyroi.

[fivepointer]

Very surprised Kabeya isnt even in the 23.

Tough on Aitchison to miss out.

[Which Tyler]

Also
Scotland:
1 Bartlett
2 Skeldon
3 Clarke
4 Konkel
5 Bonar
6 Malcolm (c)
7 McLachlan
8 Gallagher

09 Brebner-Holden
10 Nelson
11 McGhie
12 Thomson
13 Orr
14 Lloyd
15 Rollie

16 Martin, 17 Young, 18 Poolman, 19 Boyd, 20 Bell
21 Clarke, 22 Wills, 23 Scott

Ireland:
1 O'Dowd
2 Jones
3 Djougang
4 Campbell
5 Tuite
6 Wall
7 McMahon (c)
8 Hogan

09 Scuffil-McCabe
10 O'Brien
11 Costigan
12 Breen
13 Dalton
14 Elmes Kinlan
15 Corey

16 Moloney, 17 McGrath, 18 Haney, 19 Clohessy, 20 Boles
21 Lane, 22 Higgins, 23 Flood.

[Mr Mwenda]

Italy v Wales postponed to Sunday for big fiddler's funeral

Ireland's star No 8 Aiofe Wafer is injured and won't appear in the Scotland away fixture

England continue to rotate heavily. I'm not sure it's a great idea even if France have been blowing hot and cold this tournament. Kildunne has a minor hamstring complaint but then Aitchison, Kabeya, Packer, Packer, Breach, Scarrett don't get a start/spot. It can't be much good for cohesion on match day -

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union ... 9pj95371go

England: Sing; Dow, Jones, Heard, MacDonald; Harrison, Hunt; Botterman, Atkin-Davies, Muir, Talling, Ward, Aldcroft (capt), Feaunati, Matthews.

Replacements: Cokayne, Clifford, Bern, Galligan, Burton, L Packer, Aitchison, Rowland.

France: Bourgeois; Grisez, M Menager, Vernier, Arbwy; Arbez, Bourdon; Brosseau, Bigot, Khalfaoui, M Feleu (capt), Fall-Raclot, Escudero, Champon, T Feleu.

Replacements: Riffonneau, Mwayembe, Bernadou, Zago, Berthoumieu, Maka, Chambon, Queyroi.

I think England are right to stick to their guns. It has been frustrating at times but having come this far they should finish the experiment.

Sadly i think Scarrett is probably at risk of not making the world cup. M. Packer is likewise not the dominant force of old. Sensible to develop new leaders even though i'd love both to have a swansong in the autumn.

[Which Tyler]

Italy:
1 Turani
2 Vecchini
3 Seye
4 Tounesi
5 Duca
6 Veronese
7 Sgorbini
8 Giordano (c)

09 Stefan
10 Madia
11 D'Incá
12 Mannini
13 Sillari
14 Muzzo
15 Minuzzi

16 Spinelli, 17 Stecca, 18 Maris, 19 Locatelli, 20 Ranuccini
21 Bitonci, 22 Rigoni, 23 Granzotto

Wales:
1 Pyrs
2 Jones
3 Rose
4 Fleming
5 Crabb
6 Williams
7 Lewis
8 Evans

09 Bevan
10 George
11 Cox
12 Keight
13 Jones (c)
14 Neumann
15 Joyce-Butchers

16 Phillips, 17 Davies, 18 Scoble, 19 John, 20 Callender
21 Jones, 22 Bluck, 23 Richards.

[Mr Mwenda]

Scotch lasses show great heart to beat the Irish. Bit of an upset that, lovely to see.

[Mr Mwenda]

Exciting start, good stuff from both teams!

[Mr Mwenda]

Over a point a minute at the mo. Impressive stuff.

[Mr Mwenda]

Churlish to say it but Harrison is having a poor game.

[Mr Mwenda]

France not giving in. Decent match. England I think may be disappointed at they way they have faded but I reckon they are banking in France burning themselves out.

[Mr Mwenda]

Churlish to say it but Harrison is having a poor game.

An improved second half from her thus far.

[Slater582]

37 thousand is the attendance at Twickenham.

[Mr Mwenda]

Phew, what a relief. Credit to france, what a comeback.

The rotation experiment pays off, just. Squeaky bum time though.

[Donny osmond]

Scotch lasses show great heart to beat the Irish. Bit of an upset that, lovely to see.

I would say this,but it was a great game to watch

[Charlatan]

I was at the match yesterday, another belting contest in some gorgeous spring sunshine.

Very mixed performance from England. The start was superb and some wonderful team scores seemed to show the Roses were going to pick up where they left off against Scotland. However, I think a mix of complacency perhaps brought about by such a good start and a step up by the opposition in both response, quality and not rolling over def exposed some weaknesses in the side and approach.

I don’t think the selection quite worked out and backs on the bench def hampered us in the second half. I would have brought Aitchinson on sooner to mix things up. We missed Kabeya and as it turned out having Marlie on the bench to help close it out from a leadership perspective might have been no bad thing.
I’m a big Mo Hunt fan but she wasn’t having her best game yesterday.
I was pleased that Emma Sing got an opportunity (whilst having nothing against Kildunne obvs) so I was on ‘Sing Watch’. Overall I thought she went well. A great try saving tackle in that second half, took her two tries well, did some very good classic full back play covering and tidying up in the backfield when France were pressing in attack, had a horrible slip defending for the final French try which never looks good.
I didn’t think Meg Jones had a very good game, a lot of dropped balls and her and Heard didn’t seem to work together as well as sometimes.
Defence through and round the maul was poor.

A couple of thoughts more on the whole performance/team:
Our balance of being narrow and playing wide seemed off both in attack and defence. At times we did too much of both - getting very narrow in attack, literally all our players being bunched up for no reason and making it easy for France to defend, and not exploiting the wide channels on offer. Then doing the same in defence, and France were much better in spotting this in the second half and exploiting it. I wonder if some of this was down to lack of familiarity/being in sync with Sing stepping in? At times she didn’t seem quite on the same wavelength as the players around her. Then other times we were flinging passes wide and whilst yes obviously our wingers are great threats, we weren’t creating space for them before we did so (this is where I thought Jones was often guilty of this) or doing much to disguise or ask questions of the French defence.

The other concerning thing for me was a lack of response to how things were changing on field and the team figuring out how to respond - usually something I’d say a strength of this England side, like when the leaders stayed on the field against Ireland was it? We kept doing the same thing and perhaps feel intro the trap of thinking we could just bully the French with the same old one up runners and simple tactics and it would just come good. Our maul was a great weapon, as were our forwards when we used them in pods but we didn’t really go back to that, and it wasn’t till Aitchinson came on we tried any little kicks in behind etc that also worked.

I’m being a bit overly critical and still a great win, another Grand Slam and actually probably just the test this side needed ahead of the World Cup. As ever it’ll be interesting to watch this one back and compare to being there.

Other thoughts
Rizzle Kicks much less in my wheelhouse as half time entertainment than the magnificent Sophie Ellis Bexter or indeed Sugababes
I love going to these England games, the different vibes, rapport with the fans and spring time rugby is just fab!
I’ve no idea how the French player didn’t get carded for that obvious deliberate knock on.

[Mr Mwenda]

Good points, Charlatan, seems an astute assessment. I'll defer to your take on Sing but I did feel she seemed to have a nervy start but grew into the game. She's not the same sort of threat as Kildunne I feel.

Yeah, Jones and Heard didn't seem to combine particularly well. Plenty to work on there. I'm also with you on the backs subs although it seemed that MacDonald getting banjaxed was precisely the worst injury for this selection.

Definitely a weird match to manage mentally to be honest. Hard not to switch off after that start. I guess finishing it off with New leaders is something but definitely some concerns. Hopefully this is what was needed to ward off complacency. I recall NZ also love their offloads to get behind the defence, so I hope this is a signal to develop a counter.

Have France turned a corner? I think I had written them off more than they deserved, they still are a bit reliant on a few key players.

[Mr Mwenda]

In other news, Italy produced their performance of the tournament and put Wales to the sword in the second half. Sone wonderful play. Gotta feel for them'uns over Offa's dyke now though. A rough ol' rugby year.

[Charlatan]

Hoping France have turned a corner and they played some wonderful rugby at times.

I need to catch up with the other two games, but pleased to see Scotland get the win and I did see a bit of the end of Italy v Wales and agree on great stuff from the Italians. It’s going to be interesting to see what Sean Lynn does now with this Wales side for sure after the success with Glaws.

[Danno]

Thought our defence was shocking to be frank. You know France are gonna France and we looked shell-shocked that they'd come to play. Someone mentioned complacency above and that nails it, had too easy a ride to this point and a Twickenham decider for a GS - it's in the bag after try 2 right? Disappointing despite the result (and yes I'm being very very harsh)