It used to be boxing, not rugby union, that rushed to reunite rival opponents at the earliest opportunity. Friday’s opening contest of this year’s Six Nations Championship, from a promoter’s perspective, certainly ticks every box office requirement: a thunderous prime-time eliminator denied to millions less than three months ago. Roll up, roll up for the Rugby World Cup final that never was.
France versus Ireland in Marseille – the War on the Côte d’Azur? – is certainly a bold and punchy piece of first-round scheduling. On the one hand, the tournament organisers risk premature exhilaration. On the other, their competition will grab everyone by the lapels right from the bell. Even in South Africa and New Zealand, who did supply the World Cup finalists, there will be no shortage of interest.
If it proves half as good as the last Six Nations game between the sides, in Dublin a year ago, everyone will be a winner. And, boy, are both teams keen to remonter à cheval after their dispiriting Parisian quarter-final defeats to the Boks and the All Blacks in October. If the Stade de France was not being upgraded for the Olympics (Les Bleus are also playing Six Nations home games in Lille and Lyon) the sense of deja vu would be overwhelming.
It is too simple to say Friday’s winners are guaranteed to lift the 2024 title but victory will confer a significant early advantage. Did you know Ireland have never won a Five or Six Nations title in the year after a World Cup? It will be harder still to change that scratched record should they falter in Marseille against a team with multiple reasons to come roaring out of the blocks.
Yes, they will definitely miss Antoine Dupont, now playing sevens in pursuit of some Olympic gold. Yes, there are one or two injuries for them to overcome. Anyone who has followed Shaun Edwards’s motivational coaching career, though, knows there is an energetic response coming. Missing out on a World Cup may have been gut-wrenching but tomorrow has already arrived.
The way Damian Penaud, Grégory Alldritt, Matthieu Jalibert and Thomas Ramos have been playing lately has also been ominous for France’s rivals. Of the club teams illuminating Europe, Bordeaux and Toulouse have been the pick and Les Bleus could be about to reap the benefits. In the final analysis, they showed insufficient accuracy and tactical composure in their last-eight defeat to the Springboks but the Top 14 conveyor belt continues to deliver. When the Australia-raised Emmanuel Meafou is fit to feature they will be an even greater threat to the opposition. At about 6ft 8in tall and nearly 23 stone, the 25-year-old lock is almost big enough to dim the stadium lights on his own.
A Johnny Sexton-less Ireland are not quite the same strategic beast. Andy Farrell has been stressing sweeping changes are not the way to build successful teams and, as a serial winner, he should know. But simply picking up where Ireland left off in France is an impossibility without Sexton’s presence. He has been a talisman for so long that it is likely his successor at fly-half – probably Munster’s Jack Crowley – has this season’s hardest job.
While Peter O’Mahony is the flintiest of replacement captains, the unorthodox Mack Hansen’s injury absence is untimely. Unless they can knock over France a post-World Cup hangover may be harder for Ireland to shift than for some other teams.
There are two other keynote games in the first three rounds, both involving Scotland at Murrayfield. If there is one fixture to make France hesitate momentarily it is their trip to Edinburgh, where poor weather and various coloured cards have previously made life tricky. And should Scotland nick it, having already won away against a rebuilding Wales, what a ding-dong of a Calcutta Cup collision would then lie in store. Admittedly, we say it every year but Scotland, with Finn Russell pulling the strings, can worry anybody on their day.
It is another good reason why a grand slam will be tougher than ever to land. France and Ireland were a level up quality-wise on the rest at the World Cup but refereeing interpretations, high tackle rulings and defensive line speed can still intervene. So can the bounce of a rugby ball, the biggest variable of the lot.
Wales and Italy? Having occupied the table’s bottom two rungs for the past two seasons, they will have to work hard to avoid a hat-trick. Italy, after a deflating World Cup, have three away games, although the improving form of Benetton Treviso is a plus. Wales will require something special to beat France or Ireland but Warren Gatland is enjoying working with his latest batch of energetic young players. All they need is a bit of direction – call it Gat-nav – and some early momentum.
Which leaves England, determined to shake off their recent cloak of underachievement. An upbeat new captain in Jamie George and some promising young backs have certainly brought a different vibe to their training camp in Girona. They will defend with more urgency and vigour and want to bolt something more proactive on to the basic attacking framework seen during Steve Borthwick’s first year in charge.
It will not be revolutionary but the stats tell the story: England have been unable to collect more than one try bonus point in their last four Six Nations campaigns. Simply blaming the “squeezed middle” of the field as an excuse for kicking the ball away is also not going to attract fresh eyeballs to a sport that increasingly needs them. The sooner teams are incentivised to take more calculated risks – or measures are taken to reduce the amount of box kicking outside a team’s 22 – the better.
While we are at it, one or two other nagging issues also need rectifying. Is it a great look for England, Scotland and Ireland to be enjoying Six Nations training camps in countries who, as things stand, are barred from competing in the championship themselves? And how much longer must we wait for the introduction of a 20-minute “orange card” for non-deliberate head clashes, satisfying the vital need to lower tackle heights while simultaneously reducing the numbers of fractional red cards?
The good news is that the Six Nations still satisfies parts of the soul even embedded Netflix film crews cannot reach. While JPR Williams, sadly, is no longer around, hopefully this tournament will deliver more of the indelible long-term memories in which he used to specialise. France are my pick to finish top of the pops but what rugby really needs is another spectacular show.
