Six Nations - Surprises Galore

[f4f3]

1	France	5	4	0	1	148	85	8
2	Ireland	5	4	0	1	131	97	8
3	Scotland	5	3	0	2	78	81	6
4	England	5	2	0	3	120	106	4
5	Wales	5	1	1	3	80	135	3
6	Italy	5	0	1	4	72	125	1

Not exactly the table I expected at the end of the championship. Obviously England's poor showing was a surprise, but I think Ireland, Scotland and Italy can all take something away from this season's encounters. 

Scotland's result on Saturday against Italy surprised me as much as their victories over England and France, and their poor performance against Irealand (the spirited loss against Wales after having a player sent off early in the game must go down as a "What-if", and a missed opportunity). The game against Italy on Saturday would have been very easy to lose - indeed, I think the BBC's pundits were unanimous in predicting an Italian victory. I expected Scotland to be shaky, and the weakness of their line-out to be enough to give Italy the edge. In the end, the line out was almost completely solid, and the nerves didn't seem to appear at all. It was that rarest of things from a Scotland team, a calm, professional performance where they did just enough to win. 

I won't puff too hard here, yet, but there are green shoots of a Scottish sporting resurgence showing this year, between the Rugby, Scotland's excellent showing at the Commonwealth Games, Andy Murray's saunter up the tennis world rankings, and even some decent displays by the Scottish football team (friendlies aside!). 

It would be nice to think that the days when we could have 136,000 supporters at Hampden Park to watch Celtic play Leeds could come back.

Comments

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but if England had won you'd be talking about how gritty and realistic the Northern game is, and how those soft southerners wouldn't have lasted ten minutes in the rain. If England lose then they don't have a bad team, the entire game is going to the dogs. Pshaw, I say.

the last time Scotland played the All Blacks the margin was 19 points - not too close, but closer than hell. After all, England beat us by 22 points last year. And France by 31.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but if England had won you'd be talking about how gritty and realistic the Northern game is

Not at all. Where's the glory in a home win against Ireland?

the last time Scotland played the All Blacks the margin was 19 points

The margin isn't the issue. What the ABs do really well is not lose. New Zealand and South Africa are the last sides that I would call soft, mentally or physically. Part of it of course is that to be part of a losing All Black or Springbok side is a bit of a lifestyle disaster. Poor bastards can't even go out grocery shopping without someone's granny telling them that they are useless pillocks and a disgrace to the country. I imagine a Scottish international could go down to the pub, strip naked and dance on the table and nobody would know or care who he is.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

In Glasgow, yes. He'd be just another naked drunk jostling for a place. In Edinburgh, they'd all be too polite to notice, and in the Borders everyone would be wondering how he lost his sheep.
But anyway.
I take your point about how much the All Blacks hate to win - in Corry's newspaper piece today he says how disapointed he was that the late kick off meant that the English players couldn't spend as much time socialising with the Irish team as they'd have liked. What sort of bollocks is that? He should have been too ashamed to do anything more than go along, raise a toast to the Irish out of decency, and then slink off to lick his wounds. I'll bet the All Blacks wouldn't have gone along and slapped backs if they'd lost. I doubt that the Scots would, either. Scotland is the country that used to treat sport as more important than life or death - decades of losing to better teams have threatened to change us into good losers, and I hope that tide is turning now.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Hate to lose. Not win, lose. D'oh!