This year’s Royal Bank of Scotland Six Nations rugby tournament has been full of upsets and surprises, with defending champions, Ireland, cracking under pressure, allowing a recently under-performing England secure the Grand Slam – to remain unbeaten throughout the tournament – and to win the title.
This year’s Royal Bank of Scotland Six Nations rugby tournament has been full of upsets and surprises, with defending champions, Ireland, cracking under pressure, allowing a recently under-performing England secure the Grand Slam – to remain unbeaten throughout the tournament – and to win the title.
England, who suffered a major blow in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, being the first host nation and former champions to fail to qualify for the quarterfinal stages, silenced critics as they pulled off this victory under the new leadership of Eddie Jones.
Jones brought his own style of play to the England setup. Employing a similar game plan to that used with the Japanese in the Rugby World Cup last year, Jones coached the relatively unchanged England team to their first Grand Slam since 2003.
In marked contrast to England’s sudden run of form, defending champions – and pre-season favourites – Ireland, imploded under the pressure of competing for a third successive Six Nations.
Joe Schmidt’s chargers were clearly suffering from the loss of some of their most influential leaders from the past couple of years – namely Paul O’Connell and Brian O’Driscoll. It is unclear what the future will hold for this young Irish squad.
However, there was some promising news for Irish (and South African) supporters, as a newly-capped CJ Stander – who was born in George – displayed tremendous ability and determination, winning two Man of the Match awards.
Wales, the only other team to win more than two matches in this year’s competition, continued their good form from the World Cup, drawing to Ireland in their first match, and going on to beat Scotland, France and Italy to finish in second place on the log.
Perhaps the most disappointing set of results belong to Italy. The Italians once again failed to record a win in this year’s competition, and with Georgia winning the European Nations Cup once again, the question is how long will Italy hold their place in the Six Nations tournament?
It is clear however, that the European teams have put the 2015 World Cup behind them, and are clearly focused on Japan in 2019. Only time will tell whether or not the Northern Hemisphere teams will be able to measure up to their Southern Hemisphere counterparts.
