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Author Topic: Six Nations 2011  (Read 23380 times)

Offline cheltenhamlion

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Six Nations 2011
« on: January 28, 2011, 07:19:58 PM »
Starts on Friday and Wales v England is first up. Its going to be very tight this year.

Offline TheSandman

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #1 on: January 28, 2011, 07:22:14 PM »
Come on Scotland!

Offline cdbearsfan

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #2 on: January 28, 2011, 07:24:42 PM »

Online PaulWinch again

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #3 on: January 28, 2011, 07:43:30 PM »
Come on England, and I'm optimistic this time, although that has been tempered by losing Lawes, Croft and Moody. We actually played some good stuff in the autumn.

Offline cdbearsfan

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #4 on: January 28, 2011, 07:55:19 PM »
I don't understand it, but hasn't rugby become rubbish? I thought everyone was up in arms about a new rule that meant you weren't allowed to touch the ball unless you shouted "HOOF!" and booted it away again as quickly as possible?

Could be Scotland's year.

Offline VillaZogmariner

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #5 on: January 29, 2011, 12:43:33 AM »
As much as I don't want it to happen, but I think France will win it.

Offline villan1975

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #6 on: January 29, 2011, 01:30:28 AM »
"come on Scotland"............irony,aint it great.Who for the wooden spoon?Italy or Scotland?gonna be tight that one for sure.

Offline cdbearsfan

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Six Nations
« Reply #7 on: January 29, 2011, 01:41:44 AM »
I think the only irony I have noticed in this thread is that the first poster to use the word doesn't know what it means. :-)

Offline villan1975

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #8 on: January 29, 2011, 01:50:01 AM »
Sorry on second thoughts I mean that using Scotland and rugby in the same sentence is the true sense of the word oxymoron,with no offence intended.

Offline cdbearsfan

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Six Nations
« Reply #9 on: January 29, 2011, 02:05:41 AM »
I reckon Scotland will do alright this year. No chance at Twickenham or Stade de France but three wins is possible. The World Cup's later this year isn't it?

Offline darren woolley

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #10 on: January 29, 2011, 09:22:31 AM »
England for me.

Offline paul_e

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #11 on: January 29, 2011, 09:29:51 AM »
yup world cup year, england should do well this year and are probably favourites this.

Ireland looked a bit weak in the autumn (but munster and leinster have started to improve since so they might give a better showing for this).

France are very hit and miss this season, none of the french sides have looked great (despite 4 qualifying for the quarters) and their pack looked suspect in the autumn.

Scotland and Italy both lack punch, they don't do anything fundamentally wrong but just don't have anyone to regularly break the line and get them going forward so they tend to be playing for mistakes.

Wales are in a mess, terrible autumn, disappointing club form in the heineken cup and quite a lot of injuries around the squad, They might turn it around as plucky underdogs but I'd say they're the weakest side of the 6 going into the tournament.

As for england great autumn other than letting south africa bully us, should've beaten new zealand (and would've if the aussie game had come before it).  We desperately need to find some craft in the centres to replace Tindall and Lawes is going to be a big loss but otherwise this is the strongest england side since 2003 and it's the best squad we've ever had.  Moody and Croft out is a shame but wood and dowson can come in and cover for them without too many problems (wood is probably the  best player in the premiership on current form).  Ashton and Foden being in means we're always going to be a threat, particularly in broken play and the front row are powerful enough to ensure we boss the scrum.  The only worry is that Hartley isn't the greatest throwing into the line and without croft we'll be relying on Wood coming in and organising that too, lot to ask of a debutant.

Offline Dave Summers

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #12 on: February 02, 2011, 12:50:49 PM »
England: B Foden (Northampton Saints); C Ashton (Northampton Saints), M Tindall (Gloucester, capt), S Hape (Bath), M Cueto (Sale Sharks); T Flood (Leicester Tigers), B Youngs (Leicester Tigers); A Sheridan (Sale Sharks), D Hartley (Northampton Saints), D Cole (Leicester Tigers), L Deacon (Leicester Tigers), T Palmer (Stade Francais), T Wood (Northampton Saints), J Haskell (Stade Francais), N Easter (Harlequins).
Replacements: S Thompson (Leeds Carnegie), D Wilson (Bath), S Shaw (Wasps), J Worsley (Wasps), D Care (Harlequins), J Wilkinson (Toulon), M Banahan (Bath).

England team for Friday night.

Delighted that Wood has come in, like him a lot and he will provide the line out option that was misxing without Croft.  Still not too sure on the centre combo, but they did play well in the Autumn.   My Dad is Welsh, so this game is massive for me, England have to win.  Simple as. 

Enjoy all

Online PaulWinch again

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #13 on: February 02, 2011, 01:15:56 PM »
Happy enough with that, but I don't rate Deacon at all.

Offline UK Redsox

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Re: Six Nations 2011
« Reply #14 on: February 02, 2011, 03:24:06 PM »
Nice article in the Telegraph yesterday by my old rugby clubmate, Steve James

Quote
Difficult week this. Wales play England at rugby on Friday night. I live in Wales, my wife is Welsh, both my children are Welsh, and, because I played cricket for Glamorgan for about 20 years and my surname hardly suggests otherwise, everyone assumes I’m Welsh too.

But I’m not. I was born and brought up in Lydney, a small town nestled on the outer fringes of the Forest of Dean and alongside the River Severn. It is very close to the Welsh border, but not close enough. It is in England.
It is also deep in rugby country. Its rugby-playing inhabitants support England with ferocious enthusiasm. When my father and his mates went to watch a home Five Nations match, they would drive west to Chepstow, into Wales indeed, but then take a left turn over the Severn Bridge and the long trip along the M4 to London, rather than the right towards Cardiff and a far shorter journey.

I went with them in 1980, squashed into the boot of the family estate car. Wales’s Paul Ringer was sent off and we (England) smashed them (Wales) 9-8. It was the most joyous occasion of my young life.
It has always been unfathomable to me how such a strong national allegiance can be altered. And, goodness, I’ve given it some thought. I once very nearly threw my hat into Zimbabwe’s ring when Test cricket there seemed an easy option. There have been times when it has just seemed easier to admit being Welsh.

My maternal grandmother was from Kenfig Hill, near Bridgend. There is so much about Wales and its people I adore. But when Simon Hughes interviewed me upon the morning of my Test debut and asked how nice it was for two Welshmen to be playing (Robert Croft was also appearing against South Africa), I could not lie: “I am not Welsh,” I stammered. I had better not repeat the contents of one letter I received from a Glamorgan member in the days that followed.

And when I was asked to captain Wales against England in a warm-up match in 2002, I initially expressed reservation. When it was pointed out that the South African Jacques Kallis was appearing as a guest, and he hardly passed the residency qualifications, I felt more comfortable. And we (Wales) did hammer them (England) that day, by eight wickets.
But this is not a simple business. For while sport might be a major carrier of national identity, it is also a carrier of opportunism and, at times, downright mercenariness.

Increased globalisation and intercontinental travel mean qualification rules are now used as lubricant for shrewd career moves that oil bucketloads of lucre.
England’s cricket team are the most obvious example. There are a few South Africans in it. England’s rugby team on Friday will be little different.
There will probably be a couple of New Zealanders in Shontayne Hape and Dylan Hartley, possibly a South African in Hendrie Fourie. Also in their squad they have the young Wasps scrum-half, Joe Simpson, who was still supporting the country of his birth, Australia, in the 2003 World Cup final.
It will be to Wales’s credit that they will be homegrown. Yes, their coaching staff won’t be (Kiwi Warren Gatland and Englishman Shaun Edwards), but that is different. Thankfully these days the team can sing Land of my Fathers with a clear conscience. Land of my Grandfathers, Maybe always sounded a little weird, in the days of Shane Howarth and Brett Sinkinson.

Not, of course, that confused loyalties are a new thing. Fourteen cricketers have appeared in a Test for more than one national team, and only one of them, Kepler Wessels (who played for Australia during apartheid and then South Africa upon readmission), can really claim politics demanded so.
One of them was the only other cricketer born in my neck of the woods who also represented England; a chap called Billy Midwinter, born in the village of St Briavels.
But, having moved to Australia aged nine, Midwinter represented his adopted country first in 1877 before switching sides four years later, and then back again in 1883. He was also kidnapped by W G Grace to play a game for Gloucestershire, but that’s another story.

For now there is only one story. Wales versus England. Not even a ridiculous train strike planned for Friday can change that. In cricket the Ashes this winter was, and always is, enthralling, but the truth is that local derbies provoke the strongest emotions.

This is bigger.

It's not often that Lydney makes the back page of the Telegraph sports section, let alone St Briavels getting a mention !!

 


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