The 2020 Guinness Six Nations fizzles out to a damp squib on (not so) Super Saturday with only Wales game against the resurgent Scots being the remaining fixture to be completed. Italy’s game with England and France’s final fixture against Ireland have both been postponed.
Round 4 was a tale of red cards, genital fondling and France’s fall at the last but one hurdle. Let’s examine all of the major talking points from Round 4.
Firstly, the Red card for Manu Tuilagi. While the majority view has been that a red was the correct call, some people have argued a yellow was sufficient and they justify that is by pointing to the World Rugby regulations, in particular the decision-making framework for high tackles.
Under that detailed framework, a shoulder charge to the head is a red card offence unless certain mitigating factors apply. One of those factors, which can see a reduction to a yellow, is if the ball carrier suddenly drops in height, such as from an earlier tackle.
Now this is what the defenders of Tuilagi argue happened in this instance, with North going down after being snared by Henry Slade. They maintain there wouldn’t have been contact with the head but for that dip.
But the truth of the matter is that's irrelevant in this instance.
Former South African Referee Jonathan Kaplan in the Sunday Telegraph has the best analysis:
“Manu Tuilagi’s red card was absolutely the right decision by referee Ben O’Keeffe and his television match official, Marius Jonker. They took their time reviewing it but really had no other choice.
Simply put, it was a no-arms tackle – i.e. a shoulder charge – where first contact was made to the head of the ball carrier, George North. That is automatically a red card, with mitigation not considered.
On the replays, you can see how Tuilagi actually tucks his right arm close to his body, which makes it impossible to even attempt to wrap it in the tackle. That ensures he is in serious trouble, and once he makes contact with North’s head, a red card is inevitable.”
What I am told is if the tackler is always illegal - in other words making no attempt to wrap - and it’s shoulder to head, there can be no mitigation considered.
If he is trying to make a legal tackle and the ball carrier has a sudden drop in height, then mitigation can come into it. But that wasn’t the case with Tuilagi. Mitigation was not considered due to the nature of the tackle, but you could see that Tuilagi may have been caught out slightly by the fact North dipped shortly before contact was made as he was tackled by Henry Slade. If Tuilagi had been trying to wrap his arms, that might have saved him, but as it was a no-arms tackle, he had to go. Clear Red and correct decision.
Secondly, Mohamed Haouas red card for the punch before halftime. An off-the-ball squabble of pushes and shoves suddenly exploded into a furious row when the prop threw a punch at Ritchie’s chin. He connects and even though it was of powder puff quality, Referee Williams took his time reviewing the images on the big screen but was left with no choice but to flash red when the cameras caught Haouas’ haymaker in HD quality. Punch to the head. Again, straight Red Card and correct decision.
Eddie Jones sadly continues to show he has no class and his comments on the Tuilagi incident as “Absolute Rubbish” and commenting that England were “we were 13 against 16” are clearly bringing the game into disrepute and need strong sanction from the Rugby Authorities.
Then there was the “ball grab” from Joe Marler. Massive over-reactions about sexual assault aside, this was a clear attempt to get a reaction from the Welsh Captain. I remember playing and seeing this happen in matches and its clearly not acceptable even if done in a rather light-hearted way. Again, the authorities here have to send a clear message and the minimum ban of 12 weeks looks like a fair punishment.
Let’s move on from Round 4 and analyse the only fixture for Round 5:
Wales v Scotland
Wales can feel fortunate to have registered the highest total ever at Twickenham and still come away with a loss, while Eddie Jones’ men can feel glad to have picked up a Triple Crown with a show of clinical brutality that took the breath away, while lamenting a costly loss of discipline.
The score line massively flattered Wales who were out muscled, out thought and out played for 70 minutes of the match.
How can the World’s best rugby defence turn to rat shit in just a few matches? The Welsh wall which repelled Ireland in 2015 for 45-phases?
That aura of invincibility has dissipated in this year’s Six Nations as Wales have shipped 10 tries in three games. Compare this to 2008’s Six Nations when just two tries shipped under Shaun Edwards’ defensive control. Wales’ tackle completion still floats around the 90 per cent mark but the brutality isn’t quite on point.
England like Ireland and France before them were able to pierce the Welsh try line far too easily. Anthony Watson was able to paw off Tomos and Liam Williams without the duo landing a meaningful blow.
Manu Tuilagi dotted down unopposed when Wales ran out of numbers and George North was caught too narrow when Elliot Daly streaked in down the left flank.
It’s clear that the defensive pattern really is not working at all with Wales far too narrow leaving Byron Hayward with a ton of work to do if Wales are going to stay competitive.
Wales are struggling with selections, the new joie de vivre of attacking mentality and a lack of ball carriers and forward momentum.
The stats against England told of 33 ‘dominant tackles’ to eight, with Wales’ attackers getting routinely crumpled into the turf. Wales simply could not compete with the might of Courtney Lawes, Maro Itoje, Tom Curry and Mark Wilson, and that’s without Billy and Mako Vunipola and Joe Cokanasiga waiting to come back.
Wales’ offloading game is a work in progress is also a work in progress.
There are passages of play when numbers one to 15 offload the ball with alacrity around the contact area and even Wayne Pivac, the orchestrator of this dextrous frippery, has called upon his charges to be more selective in their choices and pick the right areas.
Wales had treble England’s offloads (nine to three), beat nearly double the defenders (24 to 13), and made more clean breaks (13 to 10), mirroring their superiority offensively against France, yet they still trailed on the most important metric; the scoreboard.
Wales have been here before. Under Graham Henry and Steve Hanson, Wales tried a flat passing offloading game and it failed miserably. Pivac wants to do the same - the players to take flat passes at high speed close to the gain line. Unfortunately, the skill levels are not there and there are far too many handling errors and knock-ons.
This leads to scrums, and the Welsh front five are seriously deficient in this area. The number of scrum penalties is increasingly hurting Wales.
If they can’t, it’s a scrum.
Pivac either needs to improve his players handling skill levels, improve the scrum (or both) or find another plan.
On the one hand, if we are looking at positives, the last three games have been lost by an average of just over 5 points and Wales have scored 7 tries. You could say France are resurgent and England and Ireland are always hard to beat on their own ground. Moreover, it could be argued that the team is in fact in a transitional stage and the it will take time to develop. Thus, in the short term, we need to be prepared to accept setbacks. We still have some fine players.
On the other hand, the same errors recur, most notably in defence and the attack is still often blunt. Two of the tries against England were scored with numerical advantage and we made heavy weather of it even then.
France are still not a great side by any means and this Ireland side is quite average compared with recent ones. The "new" style will be hard to develop as long as Wales lack effective carriers and the set piece, specifically the scrum, remains unreliable.
This is the area where Pivac has so much to prove, and the area the last three games has done so little to reassure us. It has been a brutal and unforgiving introduction to Tier One Test rugby for Wayne Pivac.
Some of what he thought would work has not translated to this arena.
Some of his principles which manifested as intense, fast, incisive play at a lower level, have turned out to produce panicky, error strewn play at top level.
If he is honest and professional then he might well be doing a bit of soul searching after this championship. The mark of his career in reality will be how he reacts to the failures of his game plan and strategy.
Wales also have to look at their squad and start to blood new players. The Welsh team against England had almost 850 caps and there were six players over 30 in the starting fifteen – Leigh Halfpenny (31), Dan Biggar (30), Justin Tipuric (30), Hadleigh Parkes (32) Ken Owens (33), and Alun Wyn Jones (34). Another ageing member of that celebrated sextet is Jonathan Davies who turns 32 next month.
France have effectively started again with 19 new caps and an average squad age of 24, with only one player, Bernard Le Roux, over 30 in the 42-man squad.
Pivac has made four changes to his team to face Scotland. He has opted to shake things up ahead of an afternoon where captain Alun Wyn Jones will equal the world record for Test appearances on Saturday as he draws level with New Zealand’s Richie McCaw on 148 appearances.
Jones will make his 139th appearance for Wales and with his nine international British and Irish Lions caps he will make his 148th test appearance.
Jones will line-up alongside Cory Hill in the second row, who makes his first start for Wales since February 2019.
Wyn Jones and uncapped prop WillGriff John come into the front row for Wales alongside Ken Owens, while the back row remains unchanged with Ross Moriarty, Justin Tipuric and Josh Navidi packing down together.
Rhys Webb starts at nine in the only change in the backline. He partners Dan Biggar at half-back, with Hadleigh Parkes and Nick Tompkins in the midfield. Liam Williams, George North and Leigh Halfpenny make up the back-three.
Ryan Elias, Rhys Carre and Leon Brown provide the front row replacements with Will Rowlands and Taulupe Faletau completing the forward contingent. Gareth Davies, Jarrod Evans and Johnny McNicholl provide the backline cover.
This looks like the selections of a man who doesn’t know what he is doing. WillGriff John will finally get his cap when he should have probably started against England. Will Rowlands is recalled and Tomos Williams and Aaron Shingler both drop out of the match day 22. Odd.
For Scotland, the win against France was probably Gregor Townsend’s finest hour as coach since the 2018 Calcutta Cup, although ironically, their win over Les Bleus probably gifts the Championship ship to the “Auld Enemy”.
After the extraordinary red card for tighthead prop Mohamed Haous for a punch on flanker Jamie Ritchie, the inspired Scots cut loose for a second-successive victory in the Six Nations after the win in Italy, a fourth straight home triumph over the French at Murrayfield.
Scotland were very impressive against France especially in the tackle area. Their use of the Choke tackle meant they got a large number of turnovers and the French pack really didn’t seem to know how to respond.
What started as cagey affair was blown wide open by the sending off and the Scots took full advantage on a heart-warming day for Gregor Townsend’s men, who move up to third in the championship table.
With a large French support in full voice on a beautiful late winter’s aftenoon, a slow burn of a first-half slowly built towards a dramatic conclusion.
Les Bleus were put on the back foot early on when blindside Francois Cros was sin-binned for a tip tackle on Grant Gilchrist.
Adam Hastings got the scoreboard ticking for the home side with a couple of penalties but France hit back just after half an hour when their electric scrum-half Antoine Dupont put a delightful cross kick into the paws of right wing Damien Penaud, who scorched over in the right-hand corner and replacement Matthieu Jalibert, who was on due to Romain Ntamack suffering a head knocked over the conversion.
The fine try was the shining moment of a bitty stop-start game up until that point but things exploded into life minutes later when Scotland made a surge in the French 22 and Haoas had his moment of madness as he decided to clout man-of-the-match Ritchie in the face rather than tackle the flanker.
After an age of delay the Kiwi referee Paul Williams flashed the most blatant red card you could see in a game of rugby.
Hastings slotted over the ensuing penalty.
That opened the door to Scotland to find space and they stretched that lead as Stuart Hogg and Sam Johnson combined to put Maitland in for his first in the right corner.
Scotland had a dream start to the second half as Hogg showed brilliant instinct after a super turnover from the excellent Hamish Watson to set up Maitland for another diving score in the corner, with Hastings adding the extras to leave the French Gland Slam dream floundering.
Townsend has made three changes for Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations match against Wales.
Having ended France’s Grand Slam hopes with a resounding success last Sunday at BT Murrayfield, Townsend had responded to the six-day turnaround between games by re-energising his pack for the trip to Cardiff.
Those trio of alterations all come in the pack as Stuart McInally starts ahead of Fraser Brown at hooker, lock Sam Skinner replaces Scott Cummings and No.8 Magnus Bradbury comes in for Nick Haining – who is unavailable through illness.
Brown and Cummings drop to the bench, while Matt Fagerson is also among the replacements after Bradbury’s promotion to the starting XV.
Having begun the Championship with narrow defeats to Ireland and England, Scotland have responded well to beat both Italy and France – ending the latter’s Grand Slam hopes in Edinburgh last week.
The entire back division remains unchanged for a third Test in a row, while full-back and captain Stuart Hogg will move into joint-seventh on Scotland’s all-time appearance list with his 77th cap.
The Scots have suffered 10 straight defeats in Cardiff since their last win in 2002.
Townsend’s team are normally known for their attacking flair but so far during this year’s championship it is the gritty defensive efforts that have stood out. The Scots’ try line has only been breached four times in their four games so far, with two coming in Sunday’s 28-17 win over France.
Their biggest step forward has been in defence, making it difficult for teams to score. Scotland will need to make sure they keep to that standard against Wales.
This is a must win game for Wayne Pivac. Lose here, and his already shaky tenure as National coach could become terminal.
The Welsh midfield saw plenty of action against England last Saturday. Between them Hadleigh Parkes and Sam Tompkins had a combined 64 touches of the ball. By comparison, in the reverse fixture in last season’s tournament, Parkes and Jonathan Davies were on the ball just 25 times.
Six of Wales twelve tries in this season’s Six Nations have been scored in the last 6 minutes of their games. There are a few factors at play, including the possibility that their opponents in the last 3 rounds have failed to maintain their intensity after building up decent leads.
More than that though the Welsh retain some very Gatland-era qualities, including fitness levels that carry them right to the end of the game and a sort of sheer bloody-mindedness not to give up on even a seemingly lost cause.
No matter what position Scotland find themselves in on Saturday they cannot afford to take Wales lightly. If they are fortunate enough to get in front (and bear in mind in the last 10 years the Scots have led for just 22 minutes out of 400 down in Cardiff) then they need to keep pushing home their advantage and not allow their hosts to find a way back into the game.
Heart says Scotland can win and break their Cardiff hoodoo but my head thinks Wales will be too strong if they can get the ball moving. Expect a tight encounter and a one score win for Wales.
Wales 23 Scotland 17
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