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Six Nations 2018

if theres one thing for certain you're not going to see any side at full fitness, more and more players are carrying injuries and breaking down as the requirements placed on them grow and grow

every chance the competition is decided by which team keeps most of its star players fit and which have the greatest strength in depth, thats certainly how club rugby is going and international rugby cant be far from going the same way sadly

definite requirement to reduce the number of games the top players are playing each year or the overall quality is going to continue to be diluted
 
England squad announced today with the Scottish born Gary Graham announced who qualifies on residency rules. I’ve no problem with qualifying criteria BTW, it’s the same for everyone.

I only see bits and pieces of the AP and believe GG has only played 5 games or so for Newcastle and has been over looked for years by Scotland and as an academy player he wasn’t offered a pro deal by the SRU hence why he went to jersey. Scotland have great depth in the back row so I don’t believe he’ll be a loss to us however want does Eddie Jones see in him and is the England squad lacking depth in the backrow given they’ve never really played with a traditional 7?
 
Val said:
England squad announced today with the Scottish born Gary Graham announced who qualifies on residency rules. I’ve no problem with qualifying criteria BTW, it’s the same for everyone.

I only see bits and pieces of the AP and believe GG has only played 5 games or so for Newcastle and has been over looked for years by Scotland and as an academy player he wasn’t offered a pro deal by the SRU hence why he went to jersey. Scotland have great depth in the back row so I don’t believe he’ll be a loss to us however want does Eddie Jones see in him and is the England squad lacking depth in the backrow given they’ve never really played with a traditional 7?
Click to expand...
Who knows what EJ sees, but wihtout doubt he has to be the shrewdest of Home Nation coaches for quite a while.
 
A week to go, really looking forward to it now all squads are announced and the build up has begun.

First match maybe a bit of survival of the fittest with Scotland losing 9 front row players and the Welsh losing some major influence to injury.
 
I reckon England look a bit underpowered also. Certainly in the back row. Unless Teo is fit, I don’t know where our penetration is coming from.
 
Guessing the power comes from putting lawes or itoji in the back row and launchbury in tge second row. They can punch holes. Centres are the problem. Pity manu has not done enough to justify a recall
 
Certainly was not expecting this scoreline. Could be a real hammering. Scotland been out of it since the first few minutes
 
With Scotland playing their 4th and 5th choice front rows it was always going tough, especially the last 20 minutes.
For the rest of the team to be so crap was disappointing. :lol:

Mind you Wales [Llanelli] were pretty sharp.
 
Well that was an unexpected result and performance

Scotland were poor all over the field - I think it was after the 4th min when Gray went through and they lost the ball to a penalty after that they were just mistake after mistake and Wales were clinical. It was always going to be tough for Scotland but thought they had enough to get the win but that was a surprise
 
Well they got the win but by god that was tighter than expected - Ireland got away with that one. France looked a lot better than expected as well. If only they weren’t French you would feel sorry for them :D

Great start so far.
 
Glad Ireland nicked that after the french guy limped off with an obvious knee injury and it was claimed to be a head injury assessment. At best that's gamesmanship and at worst (and in my view) it's cheating.
 
Really enjoyed both games and glad to see Ireland get home. The injuries Scotland have cost them dear but to be honest they were in trouble from very early on. The lack of depth just became more apparent as the match went on with the replacements they had to bring on. Taking nothing away from Wales who were efficient. Ireland won ugly and a great last gasp kick to win but they made such hard work of that
 
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