Six Nations
 

After a rather barren run is'nt it about time England showed their true worth? I am eagerly awaiting Saturdays opener with Wales. I have got the weekend off work and I'm away at my life long best mates place for (hopefully) a cracking weekend. The 3 o clock K.O begins proceedings for the tournament and our FUBAR weekend!

I almost got killed because of this tournament.

Elaborate?

Over-excited Welsh girlfriend + dodgy Irish pub in London + Ireland vs Wales match + Wales winning in the last 5 minutes = ...well you get the idea.

Oh dear. Sounds a bad combination!

I hate rugby, thank you education system. <3

I hate rugby

i only watch from the point where England make the quarter finals.

i watch tennis, basketball, american football, football, Baseball (LOVE baseball) and any event in the Olympics a Brit is involved in but one thing ic ant watch is the egg chasers

I will watch any sport except golf and American ones! ICE HOCKEY is good for the scraps though.

I love hockey fights!! they are fun to watch and to be a part of as well, bench clearing is cool too.

Rugby is one sport I have been trying to get into ever since my uncle moved back to canada from Britian, he got really into it over there living their for 15 years.

oh yeha i ahte golf too

but baseball is the greatest thing in the world
especially watching them at the ballparks

and if ur team has LeBron james Basketball is great too

If you like the hockey fights watch this video its a PJ Stock best of.

YouTube - P.J Stock Best fights

Six Nations eh, the scrap to find the best of the middlemen in Rugby;)

Who am I kidding, it hasn't been anywhere near long enough since we bombed in the Cup for me to come out swinging lol.

There was talk of bringing Argentina in after their success in the world cup and have them based in Spain during the competition and have them play their home matches at the Nou Camp.

Shame it never worked out. Argentina are ranked 3rd in the world at the moment.

They really need to get Argentina into a proper tournament. They're a fantastic side to watch and regular competition against other nations would help them, and the other nations, become even better.

They're due to enter the tri-nations by 2012 providing they can keep up results over the next 4 years.

That should be interesting

:D



(I'll leave it to Right-track to guess why I'm smiling ;) ).

Oh c'mon somebody say something about it, this was beatifull. :D

I'm emigrating...

Closed

A new young England team that have hardly played together against a Welsh team who have 13 players playing week in week out for the same club team.

The result was hardly a surprise.

A Welsh team entirely consising of the ospreys....I mean come on so many great players from sides like Newport, the Cardiff Blues, The Scarlets and side consisting of 13 Ospreys, that's ONE Welsh team against a selective team from across England. Same could have been said for us if England won. No, Fair is fair, Victory was due in that second half, We were down 16 - 9 when I left for the pub coming out of the first half, playing away, With a full Ospreys side (Which wether or not we can call a good thing is debatable) and we came back and made it a game to be remembered. It was a fair victory to a deserving team. Regardless of wether or not we want to sit here and be blindingly patriotic. I'd have probably taken R-T's attitude but I wouldn't have made any excuses for us if we'd lost.

First time away in 20 years playing England away, Was a long time coming and an inevitability at the end of the day, and It made great for the gig I had that night. :)

And considering I've opened up a can of worms now and ofcourse one of you is going to be blindingly patriotic, Ill have to finish on a blindingly patriotic note.

*ahem*

I won't make any excuses, except to echo what Urban said.
We'll see how you get on against England when the team have playing experience as a working unit.

Just except it mate, You lost and there's no excuse for it. We put out a CLUB team, and lest you think that's a good move it's usually not folks. Out of all the BETTER players that could be found in the Cardiff Blues, The Scarlets, Newport etc. You'd be talking through your backside if you said our side was only stronger because we put out a club side. That right there is a DISadvantage. Now you can sit here and say you put out a side of youngsters and I can sit here and say you selected a side of youngsters selectively from every Club side in England and they lost to the Ospreys. Because If what Urban said is true and it wasn't just because he was looking for excuses. Then he can admittadely accept that England didn't lose to Wales, England lost to the Ospreys, England lost to a Welsh club side, England lost to a side that consists of not even our Capital, But the lesser populated accumilated efforts of Swansea and Neath. Am I correct in saying this and this being less shamefull? (That's right, bull**** it is) You could sit here all day and debate as to why every player in that English squad might have been at a disadvantage in that game, why the game was in our favour BUT at the end of the first half I believe the ball was in your court lads. The Welsh side came out on top in a fair game of rugby because they played fantastically well in the second half, there's no way that can be discredited. That is quite simply what happened. And anyone who says otherwise, without a doubt is simply blinded by patriotism.

Now tell me what I'm missing here, but as far as I'm aware I watched that game and I didn't see England being at any stronger disadvantage and If you guys want we can leave it there...

End of the day I can see this as one of those debates that's impossible to end, we could sit here and argue circles around each other about everything from the weather to the capabilities of each player in both sides until our fingers bleed, Just the same as could have the events proceeding the match if England have won but i'd much rather this be seen as simply a match in which both England and Wales put out a two sides picked selectively by both sides and Wales came out on top this time at the end of the day and this time round we came out the better side.

There's no excuses for that, that's just what happened in this particular match.

This raises an interesting question.
An organised club side V. International team.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but logic tells me that if you field a team ('team' being the operative word...rugby is a team game) against of group of selected individuals who have rarely played together (as a team) and in this case a young team at that.
Which team would you put your money on?

Now introduce Englands defeat as a learning curve for a young team, who in time will improve with every game (as a team) and eventually you have a group of players playing together with a club mentality at International level.
Like I said before...We'll see how you get on against England when the team have playing experience as a working unit.

Unless of course your claiming your win was a fluke?

Ofcourse not, what I'm saying is it's very very much open to debate and I'd rather just go get some sleep whilst Josh isn't playing up. Maybe we shall see and maybe that was the case but then again maybe it's not and maybe recognition is due to the Welsh side for simply playing to a better standard on this particular occasion.
But like you said we shall have to see, There's always the question of wether or not both the lineups could have been circumstantially better picked, fact is I believe that we truly earned the win in that second half regardless and that shouldn't be dismissed by any account.

And it is debatable because at the same time it can be said that regardless of how much experience each side had a selective side of players for an English lineup against a club side, regardless of how much experience the club side players have of playing together should have been able to come out on top, you can call it a fluke I suppose but from what I saw the Wlesh side played a fantastic second half and deserved that final result.

I'd say the person who picked theAttachment 2657side to play that particular England team should get the recognition...he knew what he was doing.

Ah see another low blow in an act of desperation from an Englishman trying to justify their crushing defeat. :p

Which reminds me, for the best handling I've ever seen of someone dealing with that unfortunate stereotype, Look up Rhod Gilbert in youtube and find the gig he did in England, Should be one of the first ones. T'was a brilliant response.

Anyway mate. I'm done with the Rugby Banter, I'm nackered. Ill get back to music in the morning. We'll get back to this next time, when you can try and justify two consecutive losses to me ey? ;)

Aye...later mate. :)

Is that the same Welsh club side that won the Magners league last season?

Y'know it's funny but you talk to any irish/scots/welsh rugby fan they always go on about how that league is far superior to the English Premiership.

In fact Cardiff Blues finished 2nd last year & Llanelli Scarlets finished 4th.
So the majority of your squad is basically made up from 3 of the top 4 teams from a superior league.

So when I say I wasn't expecting a young England side who have hardly played to get a result against opposition like that how is that disrespecting the Welsh side?

It's amazing how English fans are always being accused of being arrogant because we expect to win everything. And when we do concede that our team isn't as good as it has been in the past and will struggle to get results we STILL get accused of being arrogant.

Ergh, see now last night I stopped this because I knew it was going to lead to us doing this and I'm going to keep it stopped. I'm happy to discuss The rest of the six nations as it occurs, I will NOT make this about some Cletic pride Bollocks. I don't think it belongs in sport, I don't think that I should have to put up with the jokes about my nationality, I don't think I should have to get into an arguement with every Englishman I talk to about the Rugby. So, I'm not going to get into a heated debate about this, I believe firmly that the English squad were at no disadvantage. And by the way 13 players from one side does not constitute the best of 3. And I firmly believe that 13 Scarlets would have done an even better job of that match. You can choose to believe that statistically we went into that game a better side and that it was poor misjudgement on your part that won us that game, I'd say otherwise. That is all.

Whilst I'm here, Anyone have any favourites to win?

Huh?

I thought you won the game because you had a better team , and you did. Of course you had to play well to get the result but I hardly think you were the perennial underdog here.
Before even a ball was kicked I thought Wales would win , because I believe on paper you had the better team.After all it was only 3 years ago you won the grand slam with a youngish team that people were predicting good things for in the world cup.You have to go back to 2003 to when England last won it , and that was with an aging squad.

I don't think England lost to any misjudgement. Saying the England team have a young inexperienced side isn't making excuses , it's stating how things are.
Had I come in this thread full of bravado expecting England to thrash every team in the tournament then maybe I could understand why you feel the way you do.
As it happens I would be surprised if this England side finish the tournament any higher than 4th. We only got to the World Cup finals because we played well in the 2 games we needed to play in , not because we were the best team there & even since then we've lost Robinson & Dallagio , our 2 most influential players.

I can see why you are happy about winning , especially as you've not beaten England at home for so long.
But if I could compare it to something else. Yes I was happy England beat Australia in the ashes a couple of years ago after waiting so long .But it was a weaker Australia and it would have given me much much more pleasure to have beaten the dominating Australian team of the mid 90s instead.

What a stunning win in the Stade De France yesterday. Why the constant inconsistency with the English team though?

I think it was more to do with the French constantly making errors rather than England being good.

Our defence was awesome however going forward we offered nothing.

We still won though. No matter how bad we are, we capitalised on the errors.

Well you can only beat whats put in front of you.
It just worries me we had to rely too much on France making errors and Wilkinson converting those errors.
Against a better team making less errors or Wilkinson getting injured I don't see where we're going to get points from.

Not to gloat, i mean until the Ireland game I had no real sort of hope of us winning. But as soon as we beat Ireland I thought hang on a sec were not seeming to be ****ing about this year and all of a sudden, bam! there it is. 5 for 5, Fantastic victory over France and we go from triple crown to grand slam.

It's time to dust off that topic! :thumb:

I'm a rugby fan.

Cross the pond. We'd have switched to reruns of Fraiser before they sang their first sea chanty.

tossed salad and scrambled eggs, they're calling again.