Peter Jackson
Best team performance
FRANCE, by a country mile. A lot of pundits talked Wales-England up into something it wasn't, then the champions came along as if from another planet. All credit to Scotland for playing their part but even they could only stand and admire when the French dug into their box of tricks. The mind boggles as to how many more tries they might have scored had they not decided ten minutes from time that they'd given the crowd a good enough run for their money.
Player of the weekend
THERE was Marvellous Max (Maxime Medard) on the French left wing and The Blue Max (Max Evans) on Scotland's. For sheer courage, the wee Max was in a class of his own, hurling himself at two-thirds of the French front row within a matter of seconds. Run over twice, he refused to accept that a good big 'un will always smashed a good little 'un. Despite Tom Palmer being terrific for England, another Red Rose forward wins it by a split-decision. Nobody showed more bottle than Dylan Hartley, holding his nerve and answering Warren Gatland's unfair attack on him in the most satisfying way of all -- a figurative two fingers to Wales.
Best try
A French 1-2-3. Francois Trinh-Duc's outrageous pass between his legs with his head almost looking up his posterior will take some beating, all the more so as it set the Hairy Donkey (Imanol Harinordoquy) off on his sensational stampede between the posts. It would take something special to top that and the sublime Medard obliged barely 15 minutes later, instigating the sort of picture try only the French artists could dare to paint. Gaugin would have loved it.
Best rant
SEVENTIES legend Barry John with what sounds like an obituary of Welsh rugby and the state of the national game in the valleys: ‘Welsh rugby is in a sorry and perilous state. It's sad but it's as bleak as I've ever known it and the rugby itself is clueless and bland. The team seems to be devoid of adrenlaine, personality and nous.’
Which probably means they will thump Scotland at Murrayfield on Saturday and be the best team in the world again.
Biggest rollicking
THE flies on the wall are in for a treat when England manager Martin Johnson addresses Chris Ashton on the subject of celebrating a try before it's a try. Mr Grumpy did say that the 'rollickings' would be handed out on Monday. He will keep Ashton's in-house along the lines of: 'Chris, baby, have you thought what a first-class prat you would like if you dropped the ball on the way down from that swallow dive?’
It happened to a Frenchman once at Twickenham and thereafter the poor fellow left diving to the likes of Greg Lougandis and Premiership strikers who feel the need to give a little more for their £150,000-a-week.
Coaches under pressure
NOW that the French have come to their senses and spared Marc Lievremont another grilling, Warren Gatland is left on his own. Eight games without a win for Wales and counting. Even at this early stage, their trip to Rome at the end of the month is beginning to look horribly like a wooden spoon decider. Since giving the ex-Ireland coach a
four-year contract, Wales have lost five in a row. Maybe the Welsh Rugby Union know something the rest of us don't.
Worst move
ITALY’S in going for that forlorn last drop instead of keeping the ball in hand and trusting themselves to get into a winning position as England did for Jonny's historic drop in Sydney in '03. Had the Azzurri kept their nerve a little longer, Brian O'Driscoll would probably have ended up sounding like Nostradamus (“It's inevitable that at some stage Italy will beat us in a Six Nations' game.”)
Biggest barney
BEN Foden's proclamation on the back page last Friday morning about Big Brother coming across the Severn Bridge to take on Little Brother and ‘put Wales in their place.’ The blarney got a lot of sensitive Welsh souls foaming at the mouth about English ‘arrogance’ but it was all tame stuff compared to Gatland's portrayal of Hartley as a choker. If only the Welsh players had got as worked up, England wouldn't be favourites to land their first title for eight years.
Team of the weekend
MORE or less boils down to Les Bleus and the rest. Nine French, three English, two Scottish, one Italian. For the absent Irish and Welsh, there's always next week....
Ben Foden (England); Yoann Huget (France), Joe Ansbro (Scotland), Aurelien Rougerie (France), Maxime Medard (France); Toby Flood (England), Morgan Parra (France); Thomas Domingo (France), William Servat (France), Nicolas Mas (France); Richie Gray (Scotland), Tom Palmer (England); Thierry Dusautoir (France), Sergio Parisse (Italy), Imanol Harinordoquy (France).
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/gBPO4RNw8BE/post.aspx
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