A week is clearly a long time

It was a weekend dominated by massive collapses in form. Italy, Scotland and France all looked promising last week, but none turned up this week. Wales were still poor, Ireland should have won and England had no idea how to handle a restart. It’s the so called grand-slam decider at Twickenham in two weeks time, but given the change in performances so far, it could well not be the decisive game of the tournament.

England – Italy
To swan or not to swan, that is the question. Personally I don’t really care, but if (as it seems), it becomes the dominant discussion point, then I would rather it went away. I have mixed feelings about this game. Obviously 8 tries is great and given how strong Italy looked last week, to put them away like that was fantastic. But on the other hand, it was by no means a perfect performance.

The restarts were rubbish. We appear to have a plan of Louis Deacon taking the restart, which makes sense, but there doesn’t seem to be a plan of what to do then. Against France, we’ll be annihilated if we do that again. Similarly, with that much front foot ball, we still lack a clinical edge, often passing the ball left and right, but often not penetrating. That being said, this side is not used to dominating like that, so hopefully the analysis will help them see how much more clinical they can be.

Ashton has been such a great addition to the team. His ability to track the breaks means that he converts opportunities to points. More than that, because of that, players that break are more likely to look for a support runner, because as opposed to last year (in particular against Italy), we got the line breaks, but without any support runners, got no return for them. Now the breaks are starting to mean something and with Youngs and Flood playing as they are, the potential is fantastic.

Still huge uncertainty around the centre partnership – yes Tindall scored a try (from a forward pass) and Hape set one up (off a missed tackle). It’s hard to see Johnson changing it any time soon, but would love to see a Barritt or Clarke come into that position.

Corbisiero was immense given he was on debut, with 30 hours notice against Castrogiovanni. Haskell was good, although I still maintain my doubts. He makes a big play of his size, but rarely demonstrates huge power at internationals. If he started to see himself as a genuine link man between the forwards and backs and thought less about muscular development and more about his mobility, there is chance he could have a genuine place in the squad.

Scotland - Wales
I really don’t think much needs to be written about this awful game. I had high hopes for Scotland after the French game, and being at home, really thought they could and would win the match. God knows what happened, they were simply appalling and didn’t show up. Wales can be grateful for the poor showing to give them a much needed win.

Ireland – France
Not a great game and in some ways a classic role reversal – Ireland made the plays and scored the tries, whilst France quietly kicked points to stay in touch and with one try, just about did it. It was very surprising how little ground the forwards made on the charge and how little quality ball was presented to for the backs.

This should not give any cheer though. We love to talk about the French flair or the fact that they just don’t turn up sometimes (particularly away). Well here was a France doing the great old British trait of winning ugly. If they started matching that ability with its flair, then we should all be petrified.

One final point about the BBC coverage. I wish it would stop trying to make a narrative out of everything. Of course sometimes there are great mini-stories in the context of a match, but if there isn’t one, just focus on the rugby please.