Six Nations IV: “Heroes get remembered. Legends never die.”

This could very easily have been a post devoted to a shock Italian victory against England. The most unpredictable Six Nations of them all has made up for a distinct lack of entertaining rugby through sheer nerviness and left field results. Italy have been the architects of two of them, beating France and scaring the tweed off the Twickenham crowd on Sunday. The rugby world was almost turned on its head as the Azzurri piled into the English 22, seven points down and dashed English hopes of a Grand Slam nearing reality. Those closing moments were worth the bog-standard match we had been watching up until then, but England came through with only their egos dented and with zero tries scored to Italy’s one: 18-11.

That said, the 28 points racked up by Wales against Scotland‘s 18 (and those denied England by a resolute Italy) have whipped up an already excitable rugby nation into a country powered by nervous energy. What could have been a minefield at Murrayfield became a clear rallying cry to the Welsh team: homecoming, Cardiff, victory…

As for Ireland and France, the stalemate became even staler. Something of a relief for the French that they’d finally played a match in the championship and not lost, and worry for the Irish that they will now come up against the emboldened Italians at Stadio Olimpico. I wouldn’t dare be so brusque as to write off the Italians twice in a row (as George W. Bush famously said, you can’t get fooled again), but I also wouldn’t be averse to tipping the Irish to bookend the Six Nations strongly.

The only sadness is that the Six Nations will be over again for another year. There is no other sporting competition in the world that matches it for historical rivalry and just plain fun. That sadness will be short-lived, however, what with a certain Lions tour to come in a matter of months.

But the championship isn’t over just yet.

* * *

Italy v Ireland
Stadio Olimpico, Saturday, 2.30pm

Ireland trusted the return of Jonny Sexton would ensure they go out on a high after a dismal triumvirate of two losses and a draw. That was until he tore a tendon in his foot in a training session on Thursday. Who would have foreseen those abject results after they’d filled Wales in like an application form in the opening round?

A visit during the week from Lions coach Warren Gatland is said to have lifted the national camp’s spirits, which is ironic when you consider the jibes the Kiwi has thrown Ireland’s way over the years. Now that Gatland has his Lions hat on, though, his presence there (and the tour of Australia looming ever closer) might represent the kick they need. Playing for third is never the most inspirational of ambitions, but as individuals there is certainly much to play for. Was a visit from Warren Gatland all it took to reinforce that message?

Craig Gilroy, the Ulster wing and an Irish star on the horizon, looks set to make Irish hearts race once more. The absence of Tommy Bowe has been felt this year, not only for Ireland but for rugby fans everywhere. Gilroy, Bowe’s provincial teammate, looked set to fill that gap with his dazzling running ability, but he’s yet to get into his stride because of injuries.

For Italy, just as one talisman re-enters the fray, another departs. Number eight Sergio Parisse (back after his secondment to the naughty step for foul language) and tighthead Martin Castrogiovanni (out with the thigh injury he sustained early on against the English) have long been the two pillars of wisdom for the Azzurri, which will make Parisse’s job doubly hard against Declan Kidney’s chastened men. Which means we can count on him to pull up trees come tomorrow then.

* * *

Wales v England
Millennium Stadium, Saturday, 5pm

From famine to feast and back again. A graph of Wales’s achievements to date in the Six Nations looks like a landscape painting of the Himalayas: they’re either dwelling at base camp or raising flags at 9000m. Up until this year, Wales have come fourth in the rankings a grand total of six times, plunging lower on only three occasions: fifth in 2002 and 2007, and an ignominious sixth in 2003. Those dips were punctuated by 2005, 2008 and 2012 Grand Slams, meaning Wales have yet to take the spoils without beating every other team in the process.

This quasi-phenomenon is reflected in the attitude of the Welsh public, the majority of whom feared at the commencement of this Six Nations that their team would suffer a whitewash. Now, anything less than a tournament victory will be seen as a failure in their eyes, although this might just be down to the fact that it is England with whom Wales are vying for the title of Champions of Europe.

They say ‘you couldn’t have written better if you wanted to’. Well, you could: if Wales hadn’t been blitzed by Ireland in the opening round, then it would be Wales and England competing for the Grand Slam on the final day. As it is, it’s now a numbers game: Wales need to beat England by at least seven points -and beat them on tries- to be in with a chance of taking the number one spot which had seemed so improbable a matter of weeks ago.

This Six Nations championship has been England‘s to lose from the outset. Beating the All Blacks in the autumn effectively set the standard for this Six Nations: lose to Wales and 2013 will be seen as a backward step. A win at the Millennium Stadium -an unknown venue for many of the English contingent- would seal a first grand slam in ten years. Is the onus on the revitalised Welsh players to prevent England winning the slam in Cardiff for the first time ever? Or is it on England to deliver on the promise they’ve shown post-World Cup blues? While English pundits would have you believe otherwise, the pressure is almost certainly on England. They beat the All Blacks, after all, while Wales failed to see off Samoa and Argentina.

Two young teams with many years in the sport to come face off in Cardiff tomorrow: it is Act Two in what is set to be an epic saga of cross-border rivalry. If Wales do pull off the mother of all Six Nations wins, it will be their finest hour thus far because of the dismal nature of their journey there.  They entered the competition with seven losses on the trot, and have lost their last five home matches. Win tomorrow and in ten years’ time schoolboys with names such as George and Leigh will be hustled out of their house on a cold Saturday morning by their rugby-mad dads to re-enact Saturday 16th March, 2013.

Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies, appearing together a record 17 times in the Welsh midfield, will have a huge part to play against an equally robust unit of Brad Barritt and Manu Tuilagi. It goes without saying that this contest hinges on what damage both sides’ respective packs can do to one another. Rarely has there been an occasion on which Wales’s lineout has outshone England’s, and this area has been  a constant bugbear for successive Wales coaches. Predicting whose scrum will emerge victorious is a less straightforward exercise, given that referees have as much idea about what’s going on inside that clash of 16 monsters as they do the ‘God particle’.

In another laudable feat, Mike Phillips becomes Wales’s most-capped scrum-half this weekend, and the occasion is entirely suitable for a man who lives for the dogfight. If ever there was somebody you wanted alongside you in the trenches, it is Phillips. He might have the looks of a Mediterranean playboy -and who can forget Bakkies Botha complimenting Phillips’s “sexy blue eyes” in the heat of the battle?- but Phillips has the ability to grab the game by the scruff of the neck when all around him are floundering. Moments such as that infamous match against France in the 2011 World Cup when, down to 14 men, Phillips set off on a try that damn near brought the win (and justice) to Wales. Or another from that year’s Six Nations, when Phillips narrowly escaped the attentions of Tommy Bowe to score a try with ‘the wrong ball’.

He’s come a long way since his burgeoning days as a Scarlet, Blue and Osprey (who can even remember all the clubs he’s played for?). Rumour had it that he was once sat down by Kiwi rival and fellow Ospreys scrum-half Justin Marshall during training, and maybe that taught a then-25-year-old Phillips respect his elders – but probably not. Such dust-ups are to be expected when you have two similar characters struggling for the same position. Phillips will soon share the same distinction as Marshall, a fiery contender who broke the All Blacks record for appearances at nine, as well as experiencing run-ins with the police for fighting.

(Incidentally, Marshall was back in the Welsh eye this week, having opened a new hotel in Laugharne, the Carmarthenshire home of Dylan Thomas, and roughly 10 minutes from where Phillips was born and bred. A Western Mail reporter somewhat harshly described the All Black legend as “known during his rugby career for his bleached blond hair.” That’s all he was known for then!)

A friend tells a witty story about witnessing Phillips being approached at a cash point by an overly-boisterous rugby fan on a night out in Cardiff (a city where the scrum-half has been known to raise hell quite publicly). The fan sidles up to Phillips at a cash point and says: “Mike, I’ve heard you’re a right p****.” To which Phillips responds swiftly (maybe he’s used to hearing this): “Have you heard of the Loch Ness Monster?” Fan: “Yes…” Phillips: “Well, don’t believe everything you hear.”

* * *

France v Scotland
Stade de France, Saturday, 8pm

Clive Woodward and Phillipe Saint-André’s recent tete-a-tete has enlivened what has been an execrable French campaign. The French coach (who oversaw Sale Sharks’s 2006 Premiership win) is in such a semi-untenable position that he is now lashing out at his detractors. Okay, that’s a classic example of sensationalism -Saint-André probably calmly answered a journalist’s question- but you catch my drift.

Saint-André rebutted Woodward’s criticism of his selection policy (read: Frederic Michalak) by saying: “For the past four or five years our friend Clive Woodward has been involved in athletics. He is no longer involved in rugby … When he began his job he left for Australia with a very young squad, and they lost by between 70-80 points. He didn’t win many matches at the beginning, but he believed in his players and they were world champions in 2003.” If you were in a facetious mood, you’d point out that the French, with a very similar team, have already pumped Australia prior to this Six Nations, but that would be belabouring a point that has already been ignored to death by everyone.

It is Thierry Dusautoir, one of the game’s true gents and the epitome of a team leader, for whom we should feel sorry. There are not many who would take pride of place in a Dream XV back row of the last eight years, but he would be there or thereabouts. His unwavering effectiveness in all he does has set the standard for back-row play in Europe. Dusautoir has thanked the French fans who followed their team to Dublin and were audible throughout, whilst at the same time admitting that everybody will soon forget France’s 2013 Six Nations. That said, if France fail to end the championship on a high at the Stade de France, it is the deafening boos of the crowd that will live long in the players’ memories.

While Scotland give a first cap to 22-year-old second row Grant Gilchrist, France pitch him against newcomer Sebastien Vahaamahina, 21, who featured from the bench in that Australia win and, more recently, for 20 minutes against the Irish. Edinburgh’s Gilchrist already has experience of beating France’s top teams, having played in the Heineken Cup victory over Toulouse. Vahaamahina will have good knowledge of Scotland blindside Alasdair Strokosch, his teammate at Perpignan.

Serge Blanco and Christian Califano will present the jerseys to the team on the morning of the match: two former internationals who will be thinking long and hard about what to say to this band of beaten men. To put a perspective on shifting fortunes, in the past Scotland have lost many of the matches they should have won, and it is only fair -if there is such a thing in professional sport- that they should come good this year against Ireland and Italy.

After the implosion of the Scottish pack against the Welsh at Murrayfield (Scott Johnson would have us believe that his men were ‘conned’ by ‘diving soccer players’), the Gallic forwards will be itching to see if they can get equally stuck into Messrs Grant, Ford and Murray: a stage from which they can then launch the menacing talents of Wesley Fofana (scorer of the best try of the tournament against England) and Mathieu Bastareaud in the centre – and that’s before you look at who they have outside them. Maxime Medard and Vincent Clerc are the archetypal flair wingers, while Yoann Huget at fullback is one whose stocks and shares have soared in what has been an otherwise depressing month or so for France.

Can we finally see some running rugby in this year’s Six Nations?  

* * *

HORSING AROUND DOPING SCANDAL (CONTINUED)

We’ve all had enough of the shockingly bad horse puns over the last month or so, but the goings-on Down Under could be making a strong case for their revival. Last week we covered the NRL drugs scandal and how the actions of certain senior players within the Cronulla Sharks weren’t doing their cases any favours.

Lo and behold, Wednesday morning came the news that Sharks chairman David Irvine had resigned; this along with the manager, head trainer, doctor and physio being sacked, while coach Shane Flanagan was ‘stood down’. Australian reports indicate that Irvine resigned under pressure resulting from comments he gave about the Sharks’ former sports scientist, Stephen Dank, whom Irvine claims injected his players with equine steroids in 2011.

If horses weren’t enough, enter ‘the Gazelle’ aka Darren Hibbert, chief supplier of Dank’s sports nutrition supplements. (The laymen among you might think of protein bars when you hear the term ‘sports nutrition supplements’, but here it implies substances that make racehorses stronger and faster. Nothing you can nip into Boots to buy, then.)

Some NRL players from various clubs have apparently been buying supplements directly from the back of Hibbert’s car, which is an interesting twist on the ol’ car boot sale. Something suggests we’ve only scraped the surface of this beast of a scandal.

RUNAWAY INJURY

In this excerpt from an interview with the great Men’s Journal magazine in the United States, NFL legend Ray Lewis explains the ‘worst physical pain you’ve experienced’: 

“My hamstring being torn from my butt bone. This was 2004, and we were playing the Bears. I’m running toward the sideline at Thomas Jones, and I tried to pull up and pow! Oh, my goodness! It was like a gunshot. I threw my hand in the sky and just pointed to my sideline, like, ‘Meet me in the locker room because I’m done’. I remember that after that surgery, using the bathroom was the most challenging thing ever. My mom had to help me, which was embarrassing, so I just wouldn’t eat.”

Let’s sing it together now: “The hamstring’s connected to the… butt bone!” 

The Six Nations: “They’re here…”

WALES V IRELAND

Millennium Stadium, Saturday, 1.30pm

WALES

“Start with nothing, you’ve got nothing to lose.”

Whether or not you’re familiar with those lyrics from 80s pop rockers Moving Pictures, they’re fully indicative of the position Wales find themselves in at this stage of the year.

Wales won the Grand Slam last year, but that achievement will be dust in the wind if their attempts in the 2013 edition reflect those in the autumnal apocalypse.

There’s no point beating about the bush: it’s been a shocking few months for Welsh rugby. You could argue that the only highlight since Wales lifted the Grand Slam was Ospreys beating Toulouse 17-6 back in December.

Welsh stomachs are rumbling, and come Saturday the nervous crowd will feel like they’ve walked a mile in French fans’ shoes because nobody knows which Wales side will turn up.

Interim coach Rob Howley has borne the brunt of the criticism so far, unfairly or not. Some players desperately need to rediscover their form if Wales are to bring back the good times. They will undoubtedly improve on their autumn performances against Argentina, Samoa, Australia and New Zealand. The question on everybody’s lips is ‘When?’

IRELAND

Given Ireland’s consistent competitiveness in the Six Nations, that Wales have beaten them in the last two competitions (in addition to that stunning 2011 World Cup victory) seems too good to be true. The Welsh-Irish rivalry is almost as loaded as that the one both sides share with the English and, for neutrals, this is the ideal match to kickstart the 2013 Six Nations.

It’s tricky to judge which of these teams will be most pleased with 2013’s first round draw: Ireland, because Wales have suffered a double-dip recession in form; or Wales, because they’ve bested Ireland not once, not twice, but thrice in their last three encounters.

It’s a good bet that most of Warren Gatland’s provisional Lions test team will be on the Millennium Stadium turf on Saturday afternoon, with a couple looking to outplay each other in order to get a decent foothold in his plans. In particular, fullbacks Leigh Halfpenny and Rob Kearney and number eights Jamie Heaslip and Toby Faletau are very close calls. Halfpenny and Heaslip are the form candidates in their respective positions, but the other two are out to show their true worth after Kearney’s injury and Faletau’s recent indifferent form.

In what is likely Brian O’Driscoll’s final match against Wales, opposition centres Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Davies will be in no mood for sentimentality. A Six Nations legend might be saying farewell to Cardiff, but Wales’s midfielders have suffered enough at the Dubliner’s hands (and dazzling feet) to show him any courtesy.

A simple ‘thank you’ would be nice.

* * *

ENGLAND V SCOTLAND

Twickenham, Saturday, 4pm

SCOTLAND

The home defeat to Wales aside, England prevailed in last season’s Six Nations under a considerable coaching shake-up. Can Scotland do the same? Scott Johnson’s promotion to head coach has rankled some. Dean Ryan’s appointment as forwards coach, on the other hand, is a bold move. Here is a man so tough that a young Lawrence Dallaglio sought to emulate Ryan as his understudy at London Wasps. Having put his tactical awareness to such good use as a Sky Sports commentator, it will be interesting to see if Scotland’s abilities will allow Ryan to practise what he preaches.

The newly kilted Sean Maitland feels he has a point to prove to Todd Blackadder after the Canterbury Crusaders coach chose not to renew his contract least season. Those Super Rugby fans among us were wondering how winger Maitland never got at least a couple of caps for the All Blacks on an end-of-season tour. Scottish fans won’t want to question it. They find themselves in the rare position of having a frighteningly good back three, with Tim Visser and fullback Stuart Hogg complementing Maitland.

With the bruising Sean Lamont at outside centre, the English midfield know what to expect in that area – but it’s when the ball gets shipped out wide to Messrs Maitland, Hogg and Visser that things will get interesting.

England v Scotland might not be the straightforward win for the home team that many expect.

ENGLAND

England go into the Six Nations in the most enviable position of all the home nations, having rocked the All Blacks like a hurricane. The English press quite rightly are still racking up word counts longer than the Books of Psalms in praise of that win. (If Wales ever beat the All Blacks, the sports editors will probably commandeer the Obituaries page to cram some extra words in, so we mustn’t grumble.)

For England, the win over the All Blacks was like pressing the restart button after a bad run that was beginning to take the shine off their efforts in last year’s Six Nations. After devastating Ireland 30-9 in the final match of the 2012 competition, they won only one match (against Fiji) in their next six, before stunning a beleaguered New Zealand at Twickenham.

They have a crack coaching team, so good that two thirds of them will be heading off with the British Lions not long after the conclusion of this tournament. As Scott Johnson adequately referred to when informed that England had a few injuries, “you’ve got another 45,000 to choose from”.

It’s hard to see how injuries to frontline players could affect England the way such afflictions would harm the other home nations. In fact, there are many in England who would like to see Toulon’s Steffon Armitage (and even teammate Jonny Wilkinson) recalled from sunnier climes. When you have the luxury of easily omitting players such as Wasps Billy Vunipola and Christian Wade, or Gloucester’s Charlie Sharples and Jonny May, your strength in depth is considerable.

England are a clear danger –perhaps the most threating they’ve been for a decade– but Scotland could provide an awkward start to their campaign.

* * *

FRANCE V ITALY

Stadio Olimpico, Sunday, 3pm

FRANCE

Where England’s triumph against the All Blacks will niggle away at other teams’ minds, it certainly won’t be of any concern to the French. As we all know, they are a law unto themselves.

Only France could lose 23-20 to Argentina, before lashing back the following weekend with a 49-10 win, as they did in June of last year. Of all the European nations, theirs was the most successful autumn campaign, during which they did what none of the home nations could and beat Australia. (I say ‘beat’: it was a 33-6 mauling, which means any Welsh fans who were content with their country’s last-minute defeat to the Wallabies in December should be very ashamed indeed.)

There is a power shift in the French clubs that has been a long time coming. Domestically, Toulon have displaced Toulouse as the premier side in the Top 14, while Clermont too have forged ahead in the Heineken Cup while Guy Noves’ men floundered in key matches against Ospreys and Leicester. Only two backs in the squad to face Italy are from Toulouse, with the same number in the forwards. At one time, that would have been unthinkable.

Young men like powerhouse fly-half Francois Trinh-Duc (Montpellier) and potent centre Wesley Fofana (Clermont) represent the new generation of French rugby. Nonetheless, I will always miss the majesty of the Toulouse trio of Vincent Clerc, Cedric Heymans and Yannick Jauzion strutting their stuff in the tricolores.

Nostalgia be damned. Typically, the smart money is on France to win the whole bloody thing…

ITALY

… and yet it was only two years ago that the French came unstuck against Italy, losing 22-21 in Rome. And just over a year ago that Wales beat them at the Millennium Stadium.

Sunday’s most captivating contest will without doubt be the head-to-head of number eights Louis Picamoles (Toulouse) and Sergio Parisse (Stade Francais). Picamoles is proclaimed as the current best number eight in the world by some, but it’s hard to see past Parisse –three years the 26-year-old Picamoles’ elder– as the undisputed owner of that title. The Argentinean-born Parisse does things that no player in his position can do (yes, even Andy Powell!).

It would be all too easy to rue the fact that the Italy captain wasn’t born a Frenchman or a Kiwi, but perhaps he became the all-talented player he is today by dint of playing in a struggling side.

Refreshingly, Parisse even admitted in the Six Nations media launch that he believed France would win the Six Nations. Were those the pessimistic words of somebody who has lost before the race has even started, or the pragmatism of an icon who has only won six matches in the Six Nations since he first appeared in the championship nine years ago?

When I think of the Six Nations, Parisse is one of the first players that springs to mind, along with Brian O’Driscoll – testament to the enjoyment such players bring to this precious championship.

We know Italy have it in them to turn over one of the big dogs. It might not be France this time. It really mustn’t be Wales.

* * *

OLLY KOHN OR OLLY KAHN’T?

The storm in a teacup following the call-up of Harlequins second row Olly Kohn threatened to become a tsunami in a thimble on the twittersphere. But since when did selecting a first-choice second row in Europe’s highest ranking team signal ‘panic’ in the Welsh camp?

If selected at some point during the tournament, the 6’7” Kohn –the heaviest of all of the Welsh second rows– will be a rare weighty addition behind the front row, and certainly one that will be valued from jerseys one to three.

Much of the furore has surrounded his nationality: although born in Bristol, and with a Welsh grandfather, he is South African through and through. I don’t feel Wales have earnt the right –or can indeed afford– to turn our noses up at quality players on grounds of seemingly ‘questionable’ citizenship; especially if they qualify legitimately for the national team.

In no way is this a similar scenario to 2007, when Gareth Jenkins selected Gloucester’s giant lock, Will James. Harlequins have shown time and again in the last two seasons that they can play at an international standard (especially in the forwards, who count among them England’s Chris Robshaw and Joe Marler).

I’d be interested to read any comments about Kohn’s selection, whether they echo Aneurin Bevan’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, or the ‘Come one, come all’ mentality of the European Union. It’s all good.

Fun fact: the business-minded Kohn runs the Jolly Hog and Sausage company with two of his brothers, which would explain where his aforementioned teammate Marler got the inspiration for this haircut below. Follicular monstrosity or inspired piece of guerrilla marketing?

* * *

MY PRE-SIX NATIONS LIONS XV

1. Cian Healy (Leinster, IRE) 2. Richard Hibbard (Ospreys, WAL) 3. Adam Jones (Ospreys, WAL) 4. Geoff Parling (Leicester, ENG) 5. Richie Gray  (Sale, SCO) 6. Dan Lydiate (Dragons, WAL) 7. Justin Tipuric (Ospreys, WAL) 8. Jamie Heaslip (Leinster, IRE), 9. Mike Phillips (Bourgoin, WAL), 10. Jonny  Sexton (Leinster, IRE), 11. Chris Ashton (Saracens, ENG), 12. Jamie Roberts (Cardiff, WAL), 13. Manu Tuilagi (Leicester, ENG), 14. Tim Visser (Glasgow, SCO), 15. Leigh Halfpenny (Cardiff, WAL)

Long Way Down

When Alexander the Great cut the Gordian Knot, it signalled that he would go on to conquer Asia.  If you believe everything you hear in the press, England beating the All Blacks could prove to be just as symbolic in world rugby.

Sceptics –i.e. anybody who isn’t an England rugby fan– will say the virus suffered by the All Blacks in the week leading up to the game led to sloppy play, missed tackles and, ultimately, their first loss in 21 games.

Sports scientists will tell you that in an era of ultra professionalism where everything you eat and drink is monitored to the nth degree, spending quality time hugging the toilet bowl isn’t the best preparation for a Test match. But who cares? Certainly not the England camp which has not so much papered over the cracks as convinced the world there were never any cracks to begin with.

Those who should be worried now are the players who will next face a haka fired by the pain of losing so convincingly at Twickenham. That pleasure is all France’s at Eden Park in June 2013. The All Blacks haven’t lost there since 1994, and Philippe Saint-André’s attempts to convince his team that their hosts would have forgotten about the extraordinary events of last Saturday might prove an exercise in futility.

If the All Blacks felt a little shown up in their final Test match of the year, then Wales were made to re-enact the Emperor’s New Clothes – four weekends on the bounce. Totally exposed by an inexplicable ability to win a single match, their final act in a Welsh jersey this year was to stand in a lopsided defensive line and (if you were being particularly cruel about some individuals) jog after a fast-disappearing Kurtley Beale. Those final seconds against the Wallabies encapsulated their autumn malaise: chasing shadows.

Paul Cully from the Sydney Morning Herald summed it up best when, in berating Australia for their supposedly lacklustre end-of-season tour, he acknowledged: “Fortunately, these Welsh are paralysed by a chronic lack of self-belief, as well as a few key injuries. Their ranking outside the world’s top eight does not insult them.”

The upcoming British Lions tour would have been given a significant shot in the arm had England and Wales done the double that weekend. Instead it was a solitary Red Rose that was suddenly in bloom.

Funny how one result changed the whole look of the Autumn Internationals.

* * *

WORLD CUP

Wales’s tough 2015 World Cup pool –so far, including Australia and England– might not prove to be so ominous. In 2007, New Zealand suffered the consequences of an easy group (Italy, Portugal, Romania and Scotland) when they were ambushed by a battle-hardened France in the quarter-finals in Cardiff. The French would also come back to haunt England in World Cup 2011, after Martin Johnson’s side had overcome a less-than-world-beating group of Argentina, Scotland, Georgia and Romania.

Wales as a nation is used to crippling defeats, but the reason we might not feel as bad as we could is that we know this is just a serious but fleeting hiccough on the road to greater things. This team isn’t as bad as, say, the Wales side of 1990/91, which failed to win a single game in two Five Nations competitions. In fact, they could prove themselves to be one of Wales’s greatest, provided they learn from what has been a catastrophic finish to the year.

HEINEKEN CUP

Before the Six Nations in February comes the chance for Welsh players to regain the form that saw them selected for their country in the first place. A bite at the southern hemisphere apple is gone, and they will go away and lick their wounds, but there are more tests to come for them in the form of the Heineken Cup.

Ospreys face Toulouse on consecutive weekends: a win in either fixture would show there is life in Welsh rugby yet. Similarly, Cardiff face Montpellier at home this weekend. Both Toulouse and Montpellier contain significant individuals from the French team, so the onus is on the available international players from Wales to show there is more life in them than the Autumn series suggested. Those men who have so far gone under Warren Gatland’s radar might also like to make themselves known if there are to be any Welsh bolters for the Six Nations.

THE SIX NATIONS

Three games stood out during this Autumn series that have given the Six Nations competition added significance: France destroying the Wallabies; Ireland arresting the development of the Pumas; and England recording maybe one of the biggest rugby upsets of the decade as they laid waste to the All Blacks.

Good news not just for those winning teams, but for the three countries now languishing in the bottom half of Europe’s premier rugby competition. With Wales, Scotland and Italy left trailing behind, there will now be more to gain from beating the top three (and England especially) than just bragging rights. Their underdog mindsets will be: if we humble England, we humble the team that beat the All Blacks. It happened in 2004 when Ireland hungered after the win against an England team still basking in the afterglow of winning the World Cup – and got it.

France can always be relied upon to regain some respect for the northern hemisphere when the Big Three arrive on European shores. Ireland too have shown they can mix it with the Aussies and the Saffers. England can now be added to that list.

* * *

IZZY: THE REAL LIONS WATCH

In news that seems to have taken everybody by surprise (particularly Parramatta Eels, the club that thought he would be signing for them), Australian rugby league wunderkind-cum-Aussie rules convert Israel Folau declared he had signed for the New South Wales Waratahs this week. That is, a rugby union team.

Still only a young pup of 23, and the youngest player ever to represent the Kangaroos, he has already made his riches on the back of a heap of natural talent. Along with his more obvious skills as a runner and ball-handler, the Waratahs coaches have commented that they would be crazy not to utilise Folau’s aerial abilities (cultivated not only in AFL, but in his time with the Brisbane Broncos in the NRL, where high balls are a crucial part of the game).

Folau was once a Mormon, but renounced his faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints last year. Jarryd Hayne, another league star and friend of Folau, is still a member. League fans are eagerly awaiting the return of one of their game’s brightest prospects, William Hopoate, who has taken a two years off to become a missionary for the Mormon Church before resuming his playing career with the Eels.

Now, Folau could prove to be a dud at union (he wasn’t exactly a breakout star in AFL, but he can be forgiven for not quite getting to grips with a game that most schoolchildren play in their lunchbreaks without actually realising it), but there is a strong belief it could be a case of all or nothing. His one-year contract suggests trepidation, but anybody who has seen him in action in the NRL realises that his is a rare talent.

* * *

Rugby league in Australia now faces a two-pronged attack by rugby union and AFL. The man appointed a couple of months ago to save its bacon is a former banker from Wales. Dave Smith from Pontypridd recently boasted: “I think I’ve got the best job in Australia.”  If he makes a good fist of it with the ARL, how soon before the WRU is making that long-distance call enquiring about ‘the next saviour of Welsh rugby’?

The Slambusters!

To use a variation of the famous slogan: just done it. While pundits and the public alike were busy writing Wales off ahead of their opening Six Nations match against Ireland, the wheels were already in motion for their third Grand Slam in seven years. We just didn’t know it yet.

If this were American football, the Welsh national rugby team would be called a ‘dynasty’. Yet unlike the NFL, where franchises such as the New England Patriots operate on budgets of tens of millions of dollars, and players are evenly distributed to ensure a level playing field, Wales as a nation is at a distinct disadvantage. Statistics released during last year’s World Cup showed our number of registered rugby players (50,557) is dwarfed by England (2,549,196), France (313,877), Ireland (153,080) and even Italy (66,176).

Our Under-20 national side often gets beasted by the superior experience and physicality of their English counterparts and, overall, our regions have made little impact in their quest for domestic league glory (Ospreys aside), much less the coveted Heineken Cup. By the same token, we have only four teams compared to England’s 12 and France’s 14.

The time to analyse how such peculiarities can culminate in the stellar explosion of Saturday afternoon can be saved for another day. Wales have won the Grand Slam. These are words I’ve desperately wished to write since March 20, 2011.

Wales, very much to the fore after their cliff-edge win over Ireland, made the tournament theirs to lose thereafter. Those unconvinced by their claims of superior fitness were soon left in no doubt that the Welsh team had the engine of a sports car in the body of a Humvee. They got stronger as games went on. France promised the world in their first game against Italy, and who among us wasn’t convinced they would be the biggest challengers to the title along with Wales? They saved their best game till last, but it still wasn’t enough. England made the underdog tag their own, playing with the sort of hard-done-by courage that Ireland used to play with not so long ago. For Wales, it was tense. For France, it was scary. For Ireland, terrifying. Ireland couldn’t have imagined a worse result than fourth in the table, but against England, and in a game I imagined they would stroll through, they came up seriously short. Where now for a team with so many stars, and yet so little to show for it? Despite patches of strength from their forwards (namely against England), Italy were predictably short of firepower in their backline, but must be grateful that their one win came against the only other team equally incapable of winning having an off day.Scotland have three quality scrum-halves, but that means nothing when they have no outstanding fly-half to pass to. I can’t help but feel sorry for them. Same old, same old for the bottom two teams.

A FLANKING PHENOMENON

The nature of the game these days is such that most forwards play through injuries. As such, we must hope that these Welsh warriors can keep their bodies intact long enough to challenge for the 2015 World Cup in England and, for many of them, the 2019 competition in Japan.

Dan Lydiate, recently named Six Nations Player of the Tournament, is testament to the human body’s levels of endurance. The worst of his injuries once left him temporarily paralysed after a neck injury, and in light of his recent performances we should be giving him the nickname ‘Lazarus’.

It is telling that captain Sam Warburton, always ready with a compliment for his teammates, said of Lydiate: “I’ve never seen anybody in so much pain after a game. Afterwards his body is a mess. He doesn’t feel pain during a game – he has the heart of a lion.”

Wales now have a squad of lions. In more ways than one.

Strength in depth has forever been an issue in Welsh rugby since the game went professional. Having said that, some bolters emerged during the Six Nations when some of Wales’s frontline players were injured. It made me wonder what the squad would look like if we had to replace all the starting players from that final match on Saturday. (It should be pointed out that I’m thinking more if there was a flu outbreak in the camp; not in any morbid We Are Marshall (never saw it), plane crash sort of scenario.)

While some selections might seem obvious -picked as they are from the wider Wales squad- you decide if you think I’ve been sat next to the dodgy heating system for too long. Should Gavin Henson be in there? Do you trust James Hook to start at ten, unlike Warren Gatland? Are the backs too lightweight compared to the starting backline? Is Harry Robinson anywhere near ready to play international rugby? I would also love to see any of your wildcard choices in the Comments section.

Alternative Wales XV

15. Liam Williams (Scarlets) 14. Harry Robinson (Blues) 13. Scott Williams (Scarlets) 12. Ashley Beck (Ospreys) 11. Aled Brew (Dragons) 10. James Hook (Perpignan) 9. Lloyd Williams (Blues) 8. Andy Powell (Sharks) 7. Justin Tipuric (Ospreys) 6. Aaron Shingler (Scarlets) 5. Bradley Davies (Blues) 4. Luke Charteris (Dragons) 3. Craig Mitchell (Chiefs) 2. Ken Owens (Scarlets) 1. Rhys Gill (Saracens)

THE GUTTER PRESS

The Daily Mail chose to report Wales’s Grand Slam success in a rather different manner to that which we might have expected, and the players deserved. (If you are a regular visitor the Mail Online, you’ll perhaps know why it’s already the most visited newspaper site in the world, recently overtaking the New York Times.) In what appeared to be a photographer’s effort to go deliberately out of their way to find some unglamorous, drink-fuelled money shots, they published a gallery of post-Slam revelling drunkards in the St Mary and Caroline Street areas of Cardiff. Reportage of such renowned locations is beloved of the Mail, ever the touchstone of morality. So it was that we were given glimpses of skimpily dressed girls and guys lying in a bed of chips. (Didn’t the Wall Street Journal cover all this two years ago?)

What many Mail readers -mostly middle-aged women- aren’t to know is that this is a standard Saturday night in Cardiff. Caroline Street (aka ‘Chippy Lane’) is a thoroughfare for inebriants seeking nourishment: if you go down there of a Saturday night, you know what you’re in for. To say the article was unimaginative is the understatement of the century. Cardiffians don’t need their treasured Welsh team to win a Grand Slam to party like twas 1999 – but it helps.

Following the outcome of the Six Nations on Saturday, some of the headlines in the following day’s broadsheets might as well have read: ‘Wales win Grand Slam – but look how well England did!’

Sadly, given the sorry state of journalism in the current economic climate, and the country’s geography, Wales can’t boast a plethora of broadsheets. The Western Mail is very much our rugby soapbox, so thankfully its coverage of the sport is thorough, which fans appreciate, and its famous matchday front pages were brilliant.

Interestingly, I was recently shown details which estimate that, out of 28,000 students in Cardiff, 22,000 of them read the University’s weekly newspaper gair rhydd, making it one of the highest read newspapers in Wales. If you’re ever around the Cardiff University campus area, I suggest you pick up a copy of gair rhydd – a great student newspaper, even if I do say so myself as a former contributor.

Back to my initial point, though. Am I experiencing sour grapes about Wales’s rugby team not getting enough attention on the other side of the bridge? Maybe. Then again, Wales don’t need any outsiders to give affirmation of just how special their achievement is. Their adoring fans, who flocked to Cardiff in their hundreds of thousands, have already made themselves heard.

A friend of mine, watching the match in the unglamorous confines of an oilrig off the coast of Scotland, predicted scenes in Cardiff akin to those witnessed recently in Vancouver after the home side’s Stanley Cup loss. You may recall the images of June 2011, when the Boston Bruins beat the Canucks: burning vehicles, lootings, a famously incongruous shot of a couple lying in the street, kissing (below). Those of us whose knowledge of Canada is limited to the episodes of Due South we used to watch after school were shocked that mild-mannered Canadians could cause such damage.

How the tabloids would have loved to have seen Cardiff city centre on fire on Saturday night. Alas, most Welshmen and women celebrate admirably in victory and defeat – mainly with enough drink to kill Seabiscuit.

The reason sports fans worldwide love the Millennium Stadium is its central location. Unlike many other stadia in world rugby, upon leaving the Millennium you are less than two minutes’ walk to umpteen pubs and bars. If this was the case in Twickenham, for example, which is slap bang in the middle of a sleepy residential area of Middlesex, the Mail might be able to splash pictures of England fans enjoying orgiastic levels of fun like those pictured in Cardiff. They would have to win the Grand Slam first, of course…

BROMANCING THE STONE

To continue a theme I quite arbitrarily started over the last couple of blogs, here’s another exquisite moment of brotherly love from -who else?- the French rugby team. This time it’s Clement ‘Vaseline Heels’ Poitrenaud giving the departing Vincent Clerc a kiss on the head. From what I’ve experienced on childhood trips to France, the French greet each other with handshakes and double-kisses from the age of about four, so this image should probably come as no surprise.

START SOMETHING

When you grow up in an age of trophy cabinet austerity for Welsh rugby, as my contemporaries and I did, you appreciate the good times all the more. So to have experienced three Grand Slams in eight seasons is like waiting hours for one bus to arrive… then being handed the keys to a new Ferrari.

And yet it doesn’t just feel like the closing of a door on our painful World Cup exit. While you could never say the sensation in the days following our defeat of a spirited French team was one of anticlimax, neither did it entail the same hysteria as, say, 2005. We all know why: this is the seminal stage of what should be a new era of Welsh rugby. That England have also now turned a corner for the better (while the rest of the Six Nations sides are, for want of a better word, stagnant) means we could be in for an Anglo-Welsh rivalry more balanced than the one we have witnessed over the last couple of decades. Maybe a strong Wales needs a strong England to keep itself moving forwards.

Moving forwards means winning at least one Test match against the Wallabies on the Australian tour in three months’ time. It would be a great coup for the WRU if they could convince the regions to give the Six Nations players ample recovery time before then, but you can see why they wouldn’t. (The regions pay their established Welsh players a lot of money, yet see so little of them during the season.)

Given the Welsh connection with the British and Irish Lions coaching side of things, the conspiracy theorist in me wonders how much of a hand Warren Gatland had in organising Wales’s upcoming tour, with the knowledge that the Lions will be headed Down Under almost exactly one year later. Did Gatland presuppose Six Nations success for Wales in anticipation of a Lions head coach position? He was always a strong contender as it was.

One of the greatest rugby sides in history, England’s 2002-03 vintage won the World Cup on Australian soil having already defeated Eddie Jones’s Wallabies at the then Colonial Stadium in Melbourne five months earlier. Assuming Wales will be well represented in the Lions squad, if they can sample success against Robbie Deans’ men in June -and there’s no reason why they can’t, if they maintain the core of this Six Nations squad- it could set the Lions up for a potential first series win since 1997.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Between now and next year’s Six Nations (I’ve started to count down the days already), British rugby could unearth another Richie Gray, Owen Farrell or Alex Cuthbert. The game just got even more exciting.

AMATEUR HOUR

The other day, I happened upon a rugby match on the Blackweir playing field, which turned out to be Cardiff University’s School of Biosciences versus a Combined Armed Forces student team. It was a heavenly sunny day, and I doubt there was anything riding on the game’s result other than bragging rights.

Not only did most of the players look the same size and shape as rugby players of the 1970s, but they played in the same spirit too. Hence, what I assumed would be worth watching for only five minutes ended up with me staying for the whole match. Granted, one or two players looked like they would have been better served staying back in the laboratory, but their love of playing the game was evident and uplifting. And besides, both teams also boasted some very good players.

It made me wonder: with international match tickets now costing in excess of £80, it’s worth remembering that you can often get just as much enjoyment from watching an amateur game in your local park. In many ways, there wouldn’t have been a Wales v France at the Millennium Stadium without the sort of game going on at the Blackweir playing field just down the road.