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Tom Hamilton, Senior Writer
Chances are the 2024 Six Nations title will end up this weekend where we all predicted it would at the start of the Championship: in Dublin. But few would have predicted the journey this tournament has taken, with the twists, turns, tribulations and (disallowed) tries taking us to what will likely be another Ireland triumph.
Ireland know they are within two points of lifting the trophy for the second time in as many years but unlike many predicted, it won’t be with the honour of a historic second straight Grand Slam. For the predestination of the Six Nations to derail from its inevitable path, England need a favour from Scotland in Dublin, while Steve Borthwick’s side have their own mission to complete in France. At the other end of the table, Wales are hoping to avoid the wooden spoon when they entertain a blossoming Italy side in Cardiff.
With all that uncertainty, “Super Saturday” still has that beautiful dab of jeopardy ahead of this weekend’s trio of matches as this year’s Six Nations draws to a close.
Ireland in the box seat
For so long this looked like a Grand Slam procession for Ireland: They are the best team in the northern hemisphere and headed to Twickenham last weekend as overwhelming favourites. But they ran into an England team who put together their greatest performance since the 2019 Rugby World Cup semifinal win over New Zealand and halted Ireland’s charge to a clean sweep.
Andy Farrell was pragmatic post-match. He said there would be no time for moping as they still had a title to win. They head into the final round of fixtures with Scotland at home and a four-point lead at the top of the Championship. Given their superior points difference, if Ireland get a losing bonus point against Scotland, the title is likely theirs. Win or draw, and the Six Nations title is staying in Dublin for the second year running.
Consider too: It’s all happening on St. Patrick’s Day weekend.
Farrell has stuck with the same starting XV that took to the field at Twickenham, but has shuffled the bench, opting for a 5/3 split between forwards and backs. Garry Ringrose returns to the squad and will add experience if called upon in the latter stages of the game.
“I love winning titles, there’s no doubt about that, but this is an occasion for us to perform when it really matters,” Farrell said. “We said it in the Grand Slam game last year and we were able to get over the line but the performance wasn’t exactly white hot, so that’s what you’re always chasing.
“Of course winning matters a lot. Certainly, winning Six Nations titles means an awful lot but, having said that, we pride ourselves on performing well when it matters, and I suppose that’s what we’ll judge ourselves on first.”
Ireland are clear favourites to retain the title, but they face a wounded Scotland team who have been befuddling this championship. For all the moments where we thought Scotland were finally going to put together a title-challenging run of performances, then came their shock defeat in Rome last weekend. With that loss came awkward questions for Gregor Townsend over his future — ones he batted away.
“I’m not going to answer that question,” Townsend said. “We’re disappointed with the result today, but we know this team have come on since the World Cup. We can look at this result and be disappointed, but I’ve been proud of how this team’s played during the championship so far.”
Regardless, Scotland will be looking to right wrongs in Dublin.
They’ll look back on a campaign where they started well with their 27-26 win at Wales — holding off a late fightback — will bemoan the one that got away against France, look proudly on their 30-21 dismantling of England and wonder how they took a step backwards against Italy. It would be some statement to finish with a victory in Dublin given they have won just one of their last 14 matches against Ireland. And to do that, they have made just two changes. Stafford MacDowell is set to debut, starting alongside Huw Jones in the midfield, while Ben White starts at scrum-half.
“The frustration is that we’re not going to Dublin on the back of four wins,” Townsend said Thursday. “We feel we had a win taken away from us against France, and obviously Italy deserved their win but we feel we could have been better that day.
“We’ve got to accept that [Ireland] will score points on Saturday. I think before [losing 23-22 to] England they were averaging 30 points a game, so it will be a test for our defence, and we have to score points. We have to get to 20 or more, which will be tough but we believe we can do that against any team.”
England the unlikely party crashers
There were collective sighs of relief in both Cardiff and London last Saturday. For France, their commanding victory over Wales gave Fabien Galthie some breathing room after a disappointing tournament. At Twickenham, England’s victory over Ireland was proof of progress for Steve Borthwick.
Both France and England have not had straightforward campaigns, but it’s the visitors to Lyon who will be feeling the more content of the two teams.
England still have a slim chance of winning the Six Nations and they will know the full picture by kick-off on the late evening on Saturday. If Scotland do them an unlikely favour in the second match of the day and dispatch Ireland, then England will still need a bonus point win in France to overhaul the deficit. They will be without star winger Immanuel Feyi-Waboso for the trip to Lyon but they’ll be looking to back up that win over Ireland with another statement performance.
The narrative post-match against Ireland was this was an England team bored of being written off. Ben Earl was forthright in his views saying the performance came despite being part of “apparently we are the worst England team ever.” But on Tuesday, attack coach Richard Wigglesworth said the victory wasn’t solely because of a team motivated by proving detractors wrong, instead a natural occurrence of training more together as a team. “The general lines of what I felt, the players got themselves to that point with a lot of hard work,” Wigglesworth said.
England have been forced into one change for the match. Immanuel Feyi-Waboso has been ruled out after showing symptoms of concussion last week. Elliot Daly comes back into the starting side. Manu Tuilagi has been named in the match-day squad for the first time since the World Cup in what could be his last game for England amid links with a move to France at the end of the season.
“I’m hopeful that he’ll be staying in England, there’s no plans confirmed as yet to my understanding,” Borthwick said. “But I’m hopeful he will stay in England. Manu adds huge amounts to this squad, he’s a player who impacts upon people and he impacts upon games, and I’m looking forward to seeing him impact upon this game on Saturday night.
“Ultimately that’s up to Manu and the opportunities that present themselves within England and his representatives. From my point of view, he knows I would want him to be in England, I want all our best players playing in England.”
While he is happy with the progress his side have made this year, Borthwick wants to finish on a high in France. “After such a hard-fought win against Ireland last week, we realise how important it is to back that performance up with another similar display in Lyon on Saturday,” Borthwick said.
“France remain one of the very top sides in the world, and will pose a great challenge for us.”
For France, it has not been a straightforward few weeks. It was a tournament that promised so much — with the first match of the championship billed as the Grand Slam decider. Back then before kick-off in Marseille on Feb. 2, France and Ireland were the clear favourites for the title. But then came Ireland’s dismantling of France and from there, they failed to find their rhythm. They came within a controversial TMO call of losing to Scotland in Round 2 and survived to draw with Italy in Round 3.
The clamour around Galthie’s future only grew louder heading into their trip to Cardiff week, but their power game got them over the line, with 21-year-old Nolann Le Garrec putting in an astonishing performance at scrum-half to help cover Antoine Dupont’s absence.
How they would love to finish this championship with a victory over England to give them something to build on heading into a summer programme where they will face Argentina twice. To do that, they have stuck exactly with the same squad that beat Wales.
“We are facing a powerful English team, with a high-pressure game, especially with their kicking game,” Galthie said. “They are coming off a huge performance against Ireland, and coming off a World Cup semifinal defeat by one point against South Africa. They are a team full of confidence, which is becoming the great team in England again.”
The battle to avoid the wooden spoon
Italy ended their near 11-year wait for a Six Nations victory in Rome against Scotland last weekend and will hope they can back that up with another win against Warren Gatland’s young Wales team. Saturday’s first match in Cardiff is the battle to avoid the wooden spoon — Italy sit fifth on seven points, Wales at the foot of the table on three points and four defeats to their name.
It has been a Six Nations where the Azzurri have taken a step forward. After defeats to England and Ireland, they came within a post’s width of beating France in Lille in Round 3. Paolo Garbisi’s late penalty miss could have previously been enough to derail an Italian campaign, but this group have a firm backbone as they showed by their response against Scotland.
“We are hungry,” Italy captain Michele Lamaro said. “We want to bring this team to the next level. We fully believe in what we do, the hard work we put in.”
Quite what the next level is, only they know, but players like Tommaso Menoncello and the guidance of coach Gonzalo Queseda can take them there. A return of two wins from their five matches would be their greatest Six Nations performance since 2013 and just the third time in the history of the championship since its inception in 2000 they’ve managed that feat.
Italy have been handed a major selection blow with fullback Ange Capuozzo injured after fracturing his finger last week. Lorenzo Pani replaces him in the 15 jersey. Stephen Varney starts at scrum-half ahead of Martin Page-Relo, while Lorenzo Cannone comes in at No.8 in place of Ross Vintcent, who is on the bench.
For Wales, this has been a campaign where they came within one point of Scotland in Round 1, two from England in Round 2, then ran into the Irish juggernaut in Round 3 before collapsing in the final 20 or so minutes against France last week as they failed to get a grip on their power game.
Gatland is experimenting in this tournament — using these high-pressure matches to see how unproven combinations and internationals can cop. He’s thrown these fledglings into the deep end, and while some have swum, others have struggled a little more to stay afloat.
But in this four-year World Cup cycle, this will be the hardest campaign of the lot. Coaches sometimes bemoan the lack of opportunities they have to blood new line-ups and players, but Gatland has prioritised that ahead of edging out victories with experienced players. His decision to start Joe Roberts ahead of George North for their match against France raised eyebrows but made more sense with North’s retirement from international rugby on Wednesday.
“We would have loved for him to still be involved, but the conversation with him was he didn’t want to continue playing for the next couple of years and then potentially leave us in a bit of a hole 12 months out from a World Cup,” Gatland said of North.
“We had a good chat around that. We’d have loved to have had a player of his ability still to be involved, but at some stage, everyone calls time.
“It means there will be another opportunity for someone else to come through.”
It will be an emotional match for those who have seen him excel for Wales across a remarkable 14-year career, but sentimentality will have to be parked as they’re desperate to avoid the ignominy of finishing at the foot of the championship. They’ve made four changes to the side for Italy with North, Nick Tompkins, Dillon Lewis and Alex Mann all starting.
“You find out about people in weeks like this when you are under a bit of pressure, how you respond to that pressure, who is going to put their hand up, who is going to accept the responsibility,” Gatland said on Thursday. “And that is what international sport and professional sport is all about, whether you are playing for Grand Slams or you are at the other end of the table and fighting for survival and fighting to make sure we get a win on the weekend.”