France 17 England 10

Try fest so far bonkers game 

35 mins 

Nuts

Whatever happens England  playing  out of their skins..where

have they been  ? FRANCE 38 ENGLAND  39 .,61 mins

If Shaun Edwards had hair,  he'd be tearing it out with that a French  defensive  performance..awful.

Total credit to England  however   and just a final lack of discpline  led to the final French penalty and the championship. 

It proves though that this French side are not invincible,  as Scotland proved last week  , when you attack them aggressively 

When France attack however you have to be on your mettle,  because they are exhilarating.  

Congratulations  France, and well done England., providing a great advertisement for the sport 

Look at France, they deservedly won the 6 nations yet conceded 96 points and 13 tries in the last 2 matches, and that’s with Shaun Edwards in charge of defence, New Zealand conceded 39 points to Australia in New Zealand too.

This has been an outstanding 6 nations, 1133 tries scored in total in 15 matches and with the exception of some of the games in the opening 2 rounds all of the games have been very complete and fairly close affairs.

Agree with all that Legend ..outstanding 6 NATIONS.

EVERY  team can take somthing from it. Some tiny green shoots for Wales,  with Tandy clearly  getting  more from players than Gatland.  After an awful championship,   England have at least found a way to play and maybe stop the ridiculous  continual  kicking  game., probably  keeps Borthwick in a job. 

Scotland  playing away from Murrayfield is still a problem,  they could have lost all three games. Townsend  has however got the Scots playing a fast game, with forwards carrying  well a then attacking  and varying  the point of attack rapidly.  Well done  ! Ireland dismantled  the Scots yesterday,  and despite several front line forwards  absent,  proved they are not a spent force

They have unearthed new stars in Osborne and Balcombe.

France, the outstanding  side, a joy to watch. They have changed their tack and no,longer have " piano lifters " in the pack, but physical  but athletic  forwards.  England however, took them on up,front and it nearly worked..seconds away.

If France are to win the next world  cup they will need to overcome the physical  might of South Africa , who would  extricate  the maximum pressure in set pieces and elsewhere, and NOT make the simple errors England  made yesterday.

It will be intresting. 

Exactly this!  I was only saying the other day that the times of 17-12 being a solid score and grinding out wins seem to be gone.  If you're a neutral and you watched any 6N in the 2010's I could probably understand you not coming back, but this years was THE advert for rugby, especially to an American market. 

I felt like the reason we didn't beat Scotland (dodgy decisions aside) was that we just needed to score more, and in a few more games time we could be there.  Vs Italy it didn't slack off until 31-0 (i think) rather than the 19ish vs Scotland, so there was clear progression there in the need to score more.  Again if we'd put the ball through hands more I think we could have hit 50 vs Italy before they started their comeback. 

The champions conceded 96 points in 2 games, I can't imagine that has ever happened before. 

Attack is on top, nowadays it seems you need to go all out for scores rather than managing games.  I'm all for it 

Genge 31 

LCD 33

George 36

Davidson 34

Itoje 32

Spencer 34

Ford 33

Slade 33

Daly 34

That’s a lot of older players for a side that only managed to finish 5th in the 6N.

They need to start bringing through younger players if they want to get anywhere close to the big boys Ireland/France. You’d worry at this stage that it might turn into a two tier competition as if anything the gap between the two juggernauts and the rest is only widening.

Great effort that nathan - fair play. I won't bother listing the ages of most of the star Irish players at this 6 nations like Gibson-Park, Beirne, McCloskey & in addition Conan, van der Flier Ringrose, Lowe, Furlong, Bealham, Aki. You may have found a suitable replacement going forward for one of those Lowe but thats about it as far as I can see. One thing I will concede though is that my faith in Farrell to keep the fall off as low as possible is more than I have in Borthwick despite his enormous talent pool. 

Key difference, Ireland finished 2nd in the 6N and have had 5 6N in a row of winning at least 4 games out of 5. Ireland don’t need to find replacements right now as they are still performing at a high level. 

England on the other hand…1 win out of 5. There is much more urgency to bring in younger players and transition these older guys out. Worth noting with England is not to confuse quantity with quality, they may have a deep pool of players but the reality is most of these young players wouldn’t get near the Ireland/France teams. Looking great against Newcastle in the prem is one thing, doing it at test level is another.

Nobody, least of all myself, will decry Ireland's performances since before the last World Cup when again, of course, they failed to fulfil their potential. England are strange - beating NZ who beat Ireland of course comfortably. I would not decry the Prem as proven by Northampton in Dublin last season. They have teams - Northampton, Bath, Leicester, Sale, Bristol who would finish in or very close to the top 8 in the URC. 

As you know yourself my worry for Ireland stems from the gulf in level of the 10 players I named above & the ones below nowhere is that more clear than at 9. Add in the loss of Sexton whose replacement Crowley would struggle to get into any other 6 nations starting 15 & you get my drift. I will be the first to eat my words if Farrell manages the change seamlessly. 

It’s going to take more than 1 great result in Europe to convince me GPR, especially when you look what Bordeaux did to them tho season. One swallow and all that.

They “could” finish top 8. I’m not really interested in hypothetical possibilities I’m interested in facts and as we’ve seen in Europe there has been a massive decline in quality of the premiership compared to 6-7 years ago which in turn as coincided with the decline of the English team compared to the great side they were in 2019. Results have improved in this regard over the last 2 years which has led to a slight uptick in form of England but reality is they are still a good bit off the big two of the NH.

Dont worry about Ireland, we are in a great spot, England were 2 BP’s away from getting a wooden spoon…that’s of far greater concern.