Scotland
Pride of place must go to Scotland who pulled off their first ever victory in Cardiff, just. In the process they posted their seventh consecutive victory. For anyone with a longish memory, this is scarcely credible, so congratulations to them.
Almost inevitably, all depended on a final shot at goal. If Lleucu George’s kick at goal had succeeded… But across the full game the Scots deserved their triumph. Bryan Easson praised the generalship of his halves, Caity Mattinson and Helen Nelson.
Cymru
The Welsh were left to regret their missed chances. Hannah Jones noted all the times her side entered the opponents’ half, but failed to profit with points. They lacked basic accuracy.
Home wins are a must in this tournament. Having failed at the first hurdle, the Welsh now face a stiffer task, across the Severn Bridge in Bristol. Their target was that vital third place. it now means they must post wins away to Ireland and at home to France and Italy. Two out of three looks like the maximum possible.
Italy
Once more the Azzurre have revealed their weaknesses rather than their strengths. To be nilled at home by a team reduced to 14 for most of the game and 13 for ten minutes leaves them open to serious questioning. Yes, they were up against the best side in the world, but after the strong start they made – powerful tackling to the fore, and 0-0 for most of the first half – they fell away alarmingly.
Their next match against Ireland away will be a real litmus test for them. They beat them convincingly at home last year, but times have changed.
Ireland
Scott Bemand was fully justified in praising his young team for their showing in front of another huge partisan crowd in Normandy. They prevented the French from reaching 40 points, and posted three tries against a team with aspirations to sit at the top of the tree.
One challenge has been to bring different sections of the team together: those attached to English clubs, the regular home-based players and the new faces trying to make their mark.
They have a big game coming up at home to Italy. Sam Monaghan should be back, but the best thing the rest of the team could do would be to show she is not essential to their well-being. They have plenty of talent.
France
Still too many ifs after this opening win. Everyone expected them to defeat the Irish; the question was: how would they achieve it? With total conviction or with question-marks still hanging from their shoulders?
Captain Manae Feleu recognises that her team left some matters to correct, but they will continue playing their fast off-loading game, hunting out the narrow gaps, especially on the blind-side.
They didn’t have to wait as long as the English for an opening score, but the Irish did stop them adding points for the first half-hour. And two tries to the opposition near the end made a stark contrast with England’s cast-iron defence.
Lina Queyroi proved a more than adequate replacement for the injured Caroline Drouin. She was 100% off the tee, totalling 11 points.
Gaps
The long-term hope remains that the 6 Nations will become more competitive, more even. The introduction of contracts has helped. But it’s a slow process.
I maintain that contracts alone cannot solve the problem. There remains the disparity in the size of nations; unless a smaller country has a stronger attachment to rugby, then its player-pool must remain less effective. Here we have Italy, France and England (large) pitted against Ireland, Scotland and Wales (small). And there are very few nations whose first sporting love is rugby.
England’s demolition of Italy is further proof of the distance some nations still have to travel. The result in Le Mans (38-17 to France) gives us greater hope. Ireland are on the mend.
After only one round the table can tell us very little, but who is surprised to see England and France at the top?
One question was answered: was it better to be in WXV1 and lose every game or in WXV2 and win all three? Now we know: Scotland beat Wales away from home.
Attendances
Le Mans 15,559
Cardiff 5,965
Parma 3,600
Another pleasing boost in numbers, but the disparities persist. Italy decided to make Parma their permanent home for internationals, but their gates are rising only slowly.
