After the first round of Six Nations fixtures Ireland currently sit atop of the table with tournament favourites Wales in second place and Scotland propping the group up at the other end.
After the first round of Six Nations fixtures Ireland currently sit atop of the table with tournament favourites Wales in second place and Scotland propping the group up at the other end. England currently sit in fourth also on zero points after a close loss to France.
Ireland 28 – 6 Scotland
Whilst Ireland would have been early contenders to beat Scotland the first 20 minutes of the match looked as though it could well have been a close encounter with the two teams sat at 3-3. Ireland looked deflated following the withdrawal of Captain Paul O’Connell.
An early focal point for Ireland was that Lion Brian O’Driscoll broke the record for number of caps making his 129th appearance for Ireland in an illustrious career that has also seen him represent the Lions on another eight occasions across his 15 year senior career.
A contentious decision at the end saw the ball bounce over the line only to be placed down by Dave Kearney. Television replays showed that the ball was in touch and the referee ruled no try before calling the match to an end.
Stand-in Ireland Captain Jamie Heaslip was named man of the match and scored one of the three Irish tries. Also scoring tries were Trimble and Kearney with Sexton managing to convert two of his kicks and adding three penalties to round up the Irish scoring.
Scotland saw two penalties scored from Laidlaw.
France 26 – 24 England
Possibly the shock of the weekend saw England succumb to a last gasp push from the France team. Having looked as though they were due to win the game with four minutes left on the clock England were leading 24-19 with their last try coming from debutant Luther Burrell.
A last ditch try from Gael Fickou however saw the English hopes slipping away on what had been an error-prone day for the team which was only made worse by Owen Farrell’s missed kicks which could have brought England back into the game on a couple of occasions.
The English tries came from Brown and Burrell with a conversion coming from Farrell. Farrell also hit two penalties, with Goode providing one. English points were rounded off by a Care drop-goal.
France saw Huget score two tries and Fickou one with Machenaud converting once and hitting a penalty. Doussain also hit two penalties.
Wales 23 – 15 Italy
The Welsh team started the defence of the title hoping to net themselves a hat-trick with an unconvincing win over Italy. The early favourite would have been expected to dominate Italy but will have to settle with an eight point margin.
A win is an improvement on last year’s Wales opener that saw them lose to Ireland by the same margin in a 30-22 loss. The match though was slightly marred by the reports of on-going struggles between national and regional rugby in Wales.
Nine of the Wales starters played in the British and Irish Lion’s tour and the team may have seen a little lethargic. This didn’t stop Italy from gifting them the first chance to score as Alex Cuthbert capitalised on an early error to get the first try which was duly converted by Halfpenny.
The second Welsh try was added by Williams and once again the conversion came from the formidable Halfpenny. Halfpenny also added to the score sheet another three times from penalties.
Italy fought hard but are still yet to record an away win for more than 13 years in the Six Nations and made this their 16th straight away loss.
Their tries came from Campagnaro with Tommaso Allan converting once and hitting a penalty.
Do you think Wales can pick-up their third Six Nations? Have your say in the comments section below.
