Apologies for the late arrival of this week’s results. Family staying in Patterdale for a short break. “Come for Sunday lunch”, which we did and of course it extended into Sunday evening. Fair play though, we did watch the England game!!

Speaking of which, this week’s winner is someone who calls himself “A late try”. (No names no pack drill). Which really is a play on words – you work it out. England pulled two of these out of the bag.

There seems to be a lot of injuries this weekend, some long term (DuPont), some not quite so long term but debilitating nevertheless. Seeing how these (pulled muscles and ligament damage) were caused makes me wonder whether the pre-match warm up needs even more control and supervision. But I’m just the IT man, what do I know?

I was always confident that France would beat Ireland, just because of the way that French teams are playing at the moment. I was surprised by the overwhelming of Ireland by the French, especially in the second half.

Also in the second half, Wales got a second wind and got themselves into a team again and gained two valuable bonus points. Scotland didn’t just fade away, I thought they actually gave up!!

Italy played with their usual flair and determination, and in the first half England played their usual steam roller game. What a difference a half time talk made. They really were fun to watch in the second half, and the ball handling leading up to the penultimate try was amazing. The icing on the cake was a number 7, now playing at 13 scoring a try.

Looking at our predictions, no one came within 10 points of the Ireland France scores, only one person came within 10 points of the Scotland Wales scores, and only three people came with 10 points of the England Italy scores. (It’s only a bit of fun!!)

So, it’s the closest 6 Nations for a long time and next week will be very interesting. Will Italy spoil Ireland’s chances? Will Wales destroy England’s chances? Will Scotland destroy France’s Chances or will the Auld Alliance kick in? It’s all down to this match to see just who will win this year’s 6 Nations.

Tune in next week………