A look ahead: the 2015 Six Nations

[HenryChinaski]

All the home nations need to not carried away to varying extents I guess.

Ireland have the most reason to get carried away especially given their fixtures. They still have fairly strong rivals though.

England need to realise that beating teams with poor tight fives doesn't make them a top 3 side. There's plenty of unresolved issues. Too many I would say. I can't imagine a grand slam being possible this year if we couldn't pull it off last year. Tough fixtures. Two losses for us if we carry on this course.

Scotland have improved significantly... From an extremely low baseline. Jury is out.

Wales have deservedly beaten a top side, but shouldn't think it erases the record of the many defeats. I don't think too much should be made of the Fiji game, but they need to acknowledge their present limitations. I don't know if they would have had enough to beat a book side playing half decently, just as England wouldn't best Australia if the latter found a couple of props.

 

[chippieolamus]

1) Ireland (although I see them losing in Cardiff)
2) England (will lose in Dublin and come 2nd to Ireland on points difference)
3) France (lose to England and Ireland)
4) Wales (will beat Ireland but lose to Scotland, England and France)
5) Scotland (will beat Italy and Wales)
6) Italy (winless I'm afraid)

Can't wait already!

 

[Scotsmanslanj]

It's Ireland's to lose, obviously. It'll be interesting to see if England manage to grind out another performance that sees them in place to win it though. Scotland have been better than they've been in years over the past few weeks, but I've not seen them put in the full 80 yet. They've produced awesome, ambitious performances, but only for one half. Wales are weak, sure, but a decent performance from them against England could place them right back in the running. I think there's also a lot to be said for psychology here. (Bear with me). Scotland and Italy are the whipping boys of the 6N and for a good reason.
Scotland's 3rd place finish aside, they're still the underdogs against anyone except Italy, and even a better NH team which is behaving like a bunch of epileptic monkeys at the moment are going to fancy themselves ahead of this fixture, purely based upon past experience. And based on France in 2013 that can be depressing.
I'm not being pessimistic, but Scotland are not the favourites heading into any match other than Italy. If they put in a top notch performance, then they stand a good chance against the others if they malfunction. But if both teams turn up in top notch then the Scots are going to be the underdogs. But that said they're far more competitive than they have been in years and rugby's a funny old game and I'm now quite girly with excitement!!

In a manly fashion of course...

 

[Mikel92]

Well said. Wales are a good team. But the worst thing they can do is look too much into beating SA, who are in my opinion the worst of the southies. They have massive potential but I see things differently. France and Ireland are in my opinion, slightly better teams than SA... at the moment.

What?

Sorry for the off topic, but how are South Africa worse than the Wallabies at the moment? Both had two losses on their end of year tour, but at least the Boks beat the ABs in the Rugby Championship, finished second, and they can actually scrummage. I think the jury is still out on France. Showed some good moments during the AI, but could have lost to the Aussies in the final few and lost to the Argies the following week. I wouldn't be putting them in the same class as Ireland just yet.

 

[iINDOMINUSxx]

Right I'm going to make a prediction on who will win what in the six nations this year

Top point scorer: George Ford (well I think he'll be England's 10 and will be very impressive)
Top try scorer: Teddy Thomas (I think he'll be a player who will score in every game, could be wrong though)
Player of the tournament: Jonathan Sexton (I thought he should have been six nation's player off the year last year)

what are you thinking ?

 

[Big Ewis]

Right I'm going to make a prediction on who will win what in the six nations this year

Top point scorer: George Ford (well I think he'll be England's 10 and will be very impressive)
Top try scorer: Teddy Thomas (I think he'll be a player who will score in every game, could be wrong though)
Player of the tournament: Jonathan Sexton (I thought he should have been six nation's player off the year last year)

what are you thinking ?

nice touch to the thread and way to give it a push forward Scotty. It's too bad we don't have a beer meter under our profile on this forum, I'd pour you, like, 10CL.

Top point scorer: Jonny Sexton. Ireland are going to punish lots of teams with their ferociousness at the breakdown, will lead a pretty good attack, and Sexyton is an accurate kicker. Plus he'll be the most settled 10 in the entire tournament, with other sides fielding fairly new faces. Got it last year.
Top try scorer: Teddy Thomas, yeah sure why not. France looked a bit better last November, this guy can score from nothing and there aren't too many guys in the tournament who are flat-out one-man tries like this dude...
Player of the tournament: most probably a player on the winning team or runnerup, so not French, Italian or Scottish. Not seeing a Taff getting this...prob Irish or rosbif...ehhhh....won't be a forward like Paul O'Connell, not flashy and obvious enough...I'm gonna go with Jonny Sexton again, but that's just the risk-free pick. Probably won't be him; no way to predict almost ANYONE from all six sides could go off for a month and a half and get it. Except Italy, that won't happen.

 

[iINDOMINUSxx]

nice touch to the thread and way to give it a push forward Scotty. It's too bad we don't have a beer meter under our profile on this forum, I'd pour you, like, 10CL.

Top point scorer: Jonny Sexton. Ireland are going to punish lots of teams with their ferociousness at the breakdown, will lead a pretty good attack, and Sexyton is an accurate kicker. Plus he'll be the most settled 10 in the entire tournament, with other sides fielding fairly new faces. Got it last year.
Top try scorer: Teddy Thomas, yeah sure why not. France looked a bit better last November, this guy can score from nothing and there aren't too many guys in the tournament who are flat-out one-man tries like this dude...
Player of the tournament: most probably a player on the winning team or runnerup, so not French, Italian or Scottish. Not seeing a Taff getting this...prob Irish or rosbif...ehhhh....won't be a forward like Paul O'Connell, not flashy and obvious enough...I'm gonna go with Jonny Sexton again, but that's just the risk-free pick. Probably won't be him; no way to predict almost ANYONE from all six sides could go off for a month and a half and get it. Except Italy, that won't happen.

well its getting closer to the six nations so we need to get this back into life and not bad selection's there @Big Ewis

 

[Leonormous Boozer]

Top Points: Sexton if he gets fit, Mads if not.
Tries: Luke Fitz
Player: PO'M

Peedictions of a happy and drunken Irishman!!!

 

[Chistera]

1. Ireland
2. England
3. France
4. Scotland
5. Wales
6. Italy

Ireland is the clear favourite in my mind, with France and England being interchangeable, always hard to predict how France will fare and England's recent string of injuries and backline turmoil (10-12-13) leads me to doubt as to their performance.
Scotland have a fantastic coach in Vern Cotter and some talented young players (Jonny Gray, Russell, Hogg, Scott...) so I tout them finishing ahead of Wales, who may suffer from overconfidence after having been described as a sure winner by most of the press.
Italy to be last, 5 defeats.

 

[TheSaffycen]

1.Ireland
2.England
3.Wales
4.Scotland/France
6.Italy

Point Scorer - Halfpenny. Scores most of the welsh points and if they have another smashing of any team he will rack up the points.
Top try scorer- May. Seems to be very confident and with Joseph inside him he will have so much threat else where he will have space to score.
Player of the Tournament-Robshaw ? North ? Sexton ? Fofana ? Could be anyone really.

 

[Jbobo]

1. Ireland
2. England
3. France
4. Scotland
5. Wales
6. Italy

Ireland is the clear favourite in my mind, with France and England being interchangeable, always hard to predict how France will fare and England's recent string of injuries and backline turmoil (10-12-13) leads me to doubt as to their performance.
Scotland have a fantastic coach in Vern Cotter and some talented young players (Jonny Gray, Russell, Hogg, Scott...) so I tout them finishing ahead of Wales, who may suffer from overconfidence after having been described as a sure winner by most of the press.
Italy to be last, 5 defeats.

Don't think that's a terribly insightful prediction, but each to their own. I'll be very surprised if we finish that low though, like, put my house on us finishing above Scotland surprised.

Also, do you mind putting even one link which backs your assertions? Ta

1.Ireland
2. Wales
3. England
4. France
5. Scotland
6. Italy

 

[Tony Manx]

Don't think that's a terribly insightful prediction, but each to their own. I'll be very surprised if we finish that low though, like, put my house on us finishing above Scotland surprised.

Also, do you mind putting even one link which backs your assertions? Ta

1.Ireland
2. Wales
3. England
4. France
5. Scotland
6. Italy

I have absolutely no idea who will win but cannot see why Ireland are everyone's favourites? A couple of injuries and they could be in trouble!

Do not get me wrong, I think they have just a good a chance as England, France and Wales with the other two fighting for the wooden spoon again!!!

 

[big ginger 8]

I have absolutely no idea who will win but cannot see why Ireland are everyone's favourites? A couple of injuries and they could be in trouble!

Do not get me wrong, I think they have just a good a chance as England, France and Wales with the other two fighting for the wooden spoon again!!!

Won the championship last year, undefeated in the AI's, best coach, best halfbacks, many of best players returning from injury there's a lot of good reasons to put us as favourites. Saying we'd be in trouble after a couple of injuries depends on the position of course but it's true for every team out there, so it's a bit of a pointless statement in some ways.

 

[HenryChinaski]

Don't think that's a terribly insightful prediction, but each to their own. I'll be very surprised if we finish that low though, like, put my house on us finishing above Scotland surprised.

Also, do you mind putting even one link which backs your assertions? Ta

1.Ireland
2. Wales
3. England
4. France
5. Scotland
6. Italy

The keyboard warrior returns

 

[Chistera]

Don't think that's a terribly insightful prediction, but each to their own. I'll be very surprised if we finish that low though, like, put my house on us finishing above Scotland surprised.

Also, do you mind putting even one link which backs your assertions? Ta

1.Ireland
2. Wales
3. England
4. France
5. Scotland
6. Italy

I have to admit, it might be a bit bold of a prediction but it's just a feeling I have this time around, Wales don't have the best of schedules and a couple of injuries could seriously disrupt the whole team as you have limited depth. Yet, I might just end up completely wrong.
As for the press thing, even though most main newspapers haven't got around to their predictions intheloose makes quite a strong case for Wales to win for example.

 

[The Jones Boy]

Historically I have to support Scotland, which isn a chore in itself... however, I am looking forward to seeing Ireland's form moving on from the belter they had in the Autumn internationals

 

[SharksFan86]

Roll on Friday evening and opening game, I hope we can win the 6 Nations this year but I think most likely be 3rd with Ireland coming out on top and Wales 2nd.

If we play like we know we can and stop giving away daft penalties then we have a chance of winning it, hopefully Lancaster has got them well drilled for this and can go onto win it as would be a great confidence booster ahead of the world cup.

Bring it on, Come on England !

 

[tituslechmakus]

I'd go for

1/Ireland
2/England
3/Wales
4/France
5/Scotland
6/Italy

We're sooo crap at the moment, I can't see us doing nothing in this tournament ! A lot of us think we will not even make it to the 1/4 next RWC ... So how could we do something in the 6N ! Poor coach with no game plan.

 

[The Jones Boy]

This is Scotlands moment...

 

[Smithy]

I think I had a dream which saw the table...

1. England
2. Scotland
3. Ireland
4. Italy
5. France
6. Wales....

However in reality I'd go

1. Ireland
2. England
3. Wales
4. France
5. Scotland
6. Italy

Not to different to the consensus. Don't feel the French should ever be totally written off despite obvious difficult circumstances. Would've loved to have seen a full strength England build towards the RWC.