Six Nations Saturday

Wales 23 v 15 Italy

Mistakes. Mistakes that led to tries. Some fussy refereeing. A great second half. Almost a huge and unlikely comeback from Italy and, finally, the game closed out by Wales. Commitment, huge hits. Italy are worthy of making the Five Nations the Six Nations.

Between matches

I popped out to the car to empty out the plastic water bottles and rubbish after the final whistle in Cardiff and before kick off in Paris. There were people driving up and down the road. I don't like those people, I never want to meet them. There is, in my opinion, something wrong with them. They are, I think, a couple of props short of a full pack. Their priorities are hopelessly awry.

I faced torrents of early disapproval at home. My mother never understood sport. She couldn't fathom how I knew the names of every player in every First Division football team, while maintaining complete ignorance on the kings and queens of England. An ignorance I have managed to keep up for over forty years. I'd be confident in saying that, say, Ethelred the Unready came before Henry VIII, but the finer details are a mystery. I still know just the one date, and that's 1066, unless 1966 counts.

Something else I've always loved is on-pitch communications. So much better than all that off pitch stuff (I participate but don't fully understand small-talk: there's weather of some sort every day, get over it; don't talk to me about football, you pretend, plastic, never-kicked-a-ball-in-anger pretender; no, I avoid television as far as possible and have no idea what the hell you're talking about, you can shove your apprentice and dragons' den up your hole, you boring little toad). There's no time to go on at length. No six hour (or so it seems on the receiving end) lectures. Short, sharp, concise, and littered with verbal shortcuts and profanities. Not for everyone. Some fall apart spoken to in that way. I think it'd be nice to say to an underperforming colleague “you've got five to sort your life out or the sub's on”.

France 26 v 24 England

There were some epic pitch battles [sorry] between some huge French nutters and that England team with Brian Moore winding everyone up and Mick 'The Munch' Skinner piling in left, right and centre. Predating Paddy Power and BetFred and the others, you would not get long odds against the sides punching up within the first five minutes, usually shortly after the kick off. It was a fifteen a side dispute, with the ball an optional extra. I can't remember the name but they had a second row forward who modelled for the trolls in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings films.

Now more controlled and technical, a faster game, but no less physical. It'd be madness to miss an instant.

It was nineteen minutes before the punch up. The ball was miles away and the camera caught some French and English players looking up, and having a group “we're having some of this” moment and running thirty metres to get involved. In the commentary box, Brian Moore said “just like the good old days”. Frantic, error-heavy, and again two sides throwing the kitchen sink at each other.

In the papers tomorrow there'll be: 'coruscating', 'high-octane', 'roller-coaster', there'll be praise for the tempo the game was played at, criticism of handling errors and turnovers, and the word 'physical' will be in every tabloid and broadsheet, in every back page report.

Playing away you need to keep it tight, keep it 0-0 as long as possible, silence the crowd. France ran in a try after 32 seconds. Having made the comeback, England didn't need to concede late on, going behind without time to get the points back, and France scored a try with 78 minutes on the clock then saw the game out. Just an amazing spectacle.

Rugby crowds at internationals...

...Rich cites a B52s gig, I'd say Animal Collective, and the night Rocket 88 pitched up at a tiny Wimbledon venue, Jack Bruce, Charlie Watts, etc, but are there ever bigger collections of people, all just delighted to be there, than at rugby internationals?