Who Will Win The Six Nations?

[farangsay]

Still i think that the Irish rugby team will be intimidated playing there. Time will tell good luck....

Well I've seen 'em beat , sometimes too often (Parc des Princes

every other year in the 80's and the only one left sitting when

'les bleus' scored another try) , but I have NEVER seen them

intimidated.

[Mossfinn]

Still i think that the Irish rugby team will be intimidated playing there. Time will tell good luck....

Well I've seen 'em beat , sometimes too often (Parc des Princes

every other year in the 80's and the only one left sitting when

'les bleus' scored another try) , but I have NEVER seen them

intimidated.

It reminds me of the time some years ago, when teams would try and come up with a tactic to challenge the Haka.

England decided not to front up and stay behind their own sticks, so the All Blacks followed them there and did it in front of them anyway!

The Irish decided to front up and then surround the awesome Blacks, a great scene but of little consequence I would suggest, I can't remember the scores, but I fear a stuffing on both accounts.

A better stadium for Lansdowne, almost certainly, Croke Park the finest stadium absolutely, if Rugby orientated only for a short time, the Irish intimidated, NEVER!!

Respect for your thoughts Mark but I will not, nay I cannot agree with them.

Good Luck

Moss

[markuk]

guys anyone interested in the fantasy league i will need your email address to invite.

PM'd you earlier Mark.

Hope you get it together.

Good luck

Moss

Have sent you the invite, anyone else up for the fantasy league on scrum.com i have setup a Thai Visa League.

Just send me your email address for an invite.

[darkan]

It's the turn of the mighty Scotch. This year we have the 2 top nations at home ( Ireland and Wales) and also the Italians. 1 tricky away game aginst France (we were robbed last time in Paris) and an opener against the whipping boys of international rugby.

Is there a trational irish bar where the celts congregate?

Darkan

[Mossfinn]

The Irish are being pushed in the poll by the Welsh, but news today is Shane Williams will miss the opener.

Could swing the advantage the Jolly Greens way.

Good Luck

Moss

[Mossfinn]

guys anyone interested in the fantasy league i will need your email address to invite.

PM'd you earlier Mark.

Hope you get it together.

Good luck

Moss

Have sent you the invite, anyone else up for the fantasy league on scrum.com i have setup a Thai Visa League.

Just send me your email address for an invite.

C'mon lads,

There are two of us now,

There are a lot of Welsh supporters voting join up, it should be fun.

As for you English supporters, you have got to do better in a fantasy league than in the real thing.

C'mon join up.

Good Luck

Moss

[Mossfinn]

guys anyone interested in the fantasy league i will need your email address to invite.

PM'd you earlier Mark.

Hope you get it together.

Good luck

Moss

Have sent you the invite, anyone else up for the fantasy league on scrum.com i have setup a Thai Visa League.

Just send me your email address for an invite.

C'mon lads,

There are two of us now,

There are a lot of Welsh supporters voting join up, it should be fun.

As for you English supporters, you have got to do better in a fantasy league than in the real thing.

C'mon join up.

Good Luck

Moss

Now we are three!

Darkan, your team looks pretty handy but I reckon that Mark is stringing us along with that selection, wait and see, a whole raft of changes in the coming week.

Good Luck to all

Moss

C'mon, still time to join.

[Mossfinn]

A good little report from Croke Park.

Again the significance on both sides wont be lost to Ireland and England regarding both Hill 16 and the Hogan Stand.

I would bet a few a Changs that both issues are used by both sides to rally their troops.

As an aside, it is called the Foreign Game here rather than the original Garrison Game, not trying to enforce my point at all The rugby posts are up at Croke Park … but nobody has seen them yet, except the players of course.

The general public are being kept in the dark until the gates of the Gaelic Athletic Association's 83,000 capacity emporium in the suburbs of north Dublin are opened for the visit of Les Bleus on 11 February.

It has been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster ride for the GAA and one can understand their nervousness after 123 years preserving and cultivating national pastimes with Croke Park the citadel. One may wonder today as to what constitutes a national past time in Ireland, but I won’t go into that!

But mostly it is Gaelic Football (not for the faint-hearted), hurling (the fastest ball game in the world they say), and Camogie (for the girls. So stay away from women with a stick, it can be painful).

Anyway, the ground, formally a much-used 14-acre site, was purchased for a mere £3,500 back in 1913 and renamed after the GAA’s first Patron Archbishop Croke of Cashel.

Spectators will also have to get used to the new seating arrangements. No West Stand to shelter from the prevailing wind or East Stand, where you need sun visors on a clear day.

Now it’s the Hogan, Cusack, and Nally Stands. Michael Hogan was a former star Tipperary footballer, Michael Cusack, one of the GAA’s founding members, and Nally, who it was believed was not even a member of the GAA, but he was not too keen on the English, and that was good enough.

Then we have Hill 16. That, for the time being at any rate, is uncovered standing room for about 15,000. The little spot that runs adjacent to the railway line was constructed from the rubble left in Sackville Street (now O'Connell Street) after the 1916 Easter rising.

So history runs steep in what the BBC’s hierarchy have termed, the ‘’hidden jewel of sports stadiums’’.

Will Carling thought the RFU were well healed with “57 old farts”. But it was only after the 336 delegates voted at Congress, which represents a cast of millions, to dispense with Rule 42 which allowed "foreign" games to grace their greensward.

Well, I suppose greensward is a bit of a misnomer. The pitch, all 100 metres of it, is actually a complex mixture of soft synthetic material and tuft or two or real grass.

But it will be fine for rugby. The pitch has been well tested by the Irish squad this week, and from all accounts you don’t bounce that high when encountering an offensive tackle!

The GAA has conducted a fairly comprehensive study in the past, with soil samples, leaf samples, nutritional analysis and even climate analysis taken into consideration.

The inside track from the players is very encouraging about the pitch and they have also given the new floodlighting system the thumbs up.

The GAA, of course, see this momentous occasion as not only breaking down barriers, but as a bit of a pay day. They will get to boost their already considerable coffers by a couple of trillion.

So naturally they have pushed the boat out for the visit of the French and have thought of everything, even ordering in cages for the inevitable pitch invasion ... not from spectators you understand, but emigrant cockerels.

But if you think the visit of French will be a major event, wait on the English a few weeks later.

Good Luck

Moss

[farangsay]

Well Moss

Tell me will you be at Croker yourself ?

I'll have to find a bar here in the city of angels

and try not to drink too much.

Anyway we can raise a glass win or lose !

Allez les verts !

[Mossfinn]

No I wont be there,

but with both the French and English visiting it it going to be highly atmospheric!!

Great games to watch I'd bet especially with a glass or two

Good Luck

Moss

[Robbie Dye]

Where's the vote for "Who Cares"?

To be found close to the section about who cares who wins the Premiership football and also adjacent to the huge numbers of voters who think England might win the Six Nations!

[EdgeCarver]

I shall always be for England but my brain tells me that this will not be their year in the 6 Nations. Maybe third; unlikely second; highly improbable winners; no Grand Slam this year for anyone.

My real concern is "where can I watch Saturday's matches in Bangkok"? Ideally near Bangkapi or Min Buri but I can travel into the centre for a decent sportsbar.

Anyone have any useful sports bar knowledge?

[markuk]

guys anyone interested in the fantasy league i will need your email address to invite.

PM'd you earlier Mark.

Hope you get it together.

Good luck

Moss

Have sent you the invite, anyone else up for the fantasy league on scrum.com i have setup a Thai Visa League.

Just send me your email address for an invite.

C'mon lads,

There are two of us now,

There are a lot of Welsh supporters voting join up, it should be fun.

As for you English supporters, you have got to do better in a fantasy league than in the real thing.

C'mon join up.

Good Luck

Moss

Now we are three!

Darkan, your team looks pretty handy but I reckon that Mark is stringing us along with that selection, wait and see, a whole raft of changes in the coming week.

Good Luck to all

Moss

C'mon, still time to join.

your quite correct!! my selection will be last minute!!!

[markuk]

My real concern is "where can I watch Saturday's matches in Bangkok"? Ideally near Bangkapi or Min Buri but I can travel into the centre for a decent sportsbar.

Anyone have any useful sports bar knowledge?

No idea for Bangkapi or Minburi (thats a way out!) i would suggest Soi 33 Wall Street as being the prime choice for Rugby followed by Dubliner / Robin Hood and the likes.

[markuk]

any other takers for the fantasy league guys??

[Mossfinn]

your quite correct!! my selection will be last minute!!!

Well my final line up I guess!

Are you going to make Darkan part of the league and take him off pending?

C'mon still time to join,

Good luck to all

Moss

[markuk]

I had forgotten to add!! done now sorry!!

[Mossfinn]

I had forgotten to add!! done now sorry!!

No probs.

Not long to go, just about to check your line-up

Good Luck

Moss

[Mossfinn]

Any one know is kicking for France today?

With Yashvilli on the bench, Ellisallde dropped and stand in kicker Traille injured I can only think it will be Skrela but he hasn't played internationally for Six years.

Good Luck

Moss

[Mossfinn]

Watching the game today, I was very happy, thinking I had Chabal in my team!!

Just checked, I was mistaken, that really is not good.

Good Luck

Moss

[Mossfinn]

Absolutely incredible game today, one of the most hard fought games I can remember.

but the Jolly Greens turned out victorious in the end.

Forwards a little off colour, but the backs of O'Driscoll, awesome, D'Arcy sublime and the warrior Hickey, has a man covered so much ground hit so many tackles, when you can hardly see through blood streaming into your eyes.

Beyond superlatives

Bring on Les Bleus

Good Luck

Moss

[farangsay]

Absolutely incredible game today, one of the most hard fought games I can remember.

but the Jolly Greens turned out victorious in the end.

Forwards a little off colour, but the backs of O'Driscoll, awesome, D'Arcy sublime and the warrior Hickey, has a man covered so much ground hit so many tackles, when you can hardly see through blood streaming into your eyes.

Beyond superlatives

Bring on Les Bleus

Good Luck

Moss

Not wishing to diminish O'Driscoll's performance (that was a great try)

or any of the rest of the team but does wee Ronan not deserve a SMALL

mention ?

[Mossfinn]

Absolutely incredible game today, one of the most hard fought games I can remember.

but the Jolly Greens turned out victorious in the end.

Forwards a little off colour, but the backs of O'Driscoll, awesome, D'Arcy sublime and the warrior Hickey, has a man covered so much ground hit so many tackles, when you can hardly see through blood streaming into your eyes.

Beyond superlatives

Bring on Les Bleus

Good Luck

Moss

Not wishing to diminish O'Driscoll's performance (that was a great try)

or any of the rest of the team but does wee Ronan not deserve a SMALL

mention ?

Absolutely!

After a lamentable first half, he showed great character in the second , not only with two great strikes from the sideline, but great running play, not usually his strength, a try, but quite significantly some important tackles against a much bigger Welsh Front forwards.

I think this was a little to do with assuaging his own poor performance in the first half but to gee up his own forwards who were under performing, seeing him hit the rucks and mauls was admirable, but possibly counter productive.

But on the whole a great second half performance by the Wee Man.

On the game, it was very tense, could have gone either way, if it wasn't for magnificent defense to a man, I still find it difficult to understand how they held a rampaging Welsh side.

The commentaters went on and on about how they were shredding the Irish, but nothing about how they continued to hold, everytime they got thru one line of defence there were backs taking on forwards and bringing them down.

A hard, hard game.

The French next week, a historic game, but Oh My The English afterward, now that will be historic, I can't wait.

Good Luck

Moss

[chuchok]

The game was played at a cracking pace,but I honestly thought that both teams lacked a bit of intensity in the forwards.Great defence,but nobody knocking people backwards etc.

One of the most physical matches I watched last year was Munster v Biarritz. If the Irish lads can play like that against England and France,then they will be 6 nation champs.

[Mossfinn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6338859.stm

History in the making,

Dam, I got goose bumps

Good Luck

Moss

[Mossfinn]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/6347365.stm

Desperate News for the Irish and for O'Driscoll himself, maybe decisive but this will be the hardest game of the Nations and not to be missed.

Good Luck

Moss

[Mossfinn]

"With two minutes remaining O'Gara landed his fourth penalty to give his team a four-point lead but at the other end winger Clerc ran through the home defence two minutes later for a French try and Beauxis converted to make it 20-17."

Disaster!!

[farangsay]

"With two minutes remaining O'Gara landed his fourth penalty to give his team a four-point lead but at the other end winger Clerc ran through the home defence two minutes later for a French try and Beauxis converted to make it 20-17."

Disaster!!

Yes , the F word sprang to the lips as soon as that move

started.

That moment's inattention threw away the results of a

hard struggle.

One has to ask <deleted> did they think the French were going

to do at that moment ? Look at their watches and wonder

how long to the aperitif ?

Jeezus !

[Donnyboy]

Where's the vote for "Who Cares"?

my thoughts exactly, most Super 14 games are better IMO