Hi

After a "sporting week-end" in London - I was at Twickenham on Saturday and at Carrow Road Norwich on Sunday (watching Man United )I have viewed the recordings I made of all of the rugby matches.

1. England V Wales. This was not the game that we all thought we would see. We all went to see England's young inexperienced side be slaughtered by the Welsh. Not so!! England mustn't have read the script.!!
Wales's much vaunted giant backs were almost completely tackled out of the game. The " New Sensation" Priestland was completely invisible apart from having his kick charged down and getting sin-binned for playing the ball from an outrageously off-side position. From the stand we all thought that this should have been a penalty try( but we are biased !!LOL).

Both teams tackled magnificently and the result was in doubt until the last whistle.....literally.

Wales just about deserved to win if only for the terrific way in which they closed England out during the time they were a man short.
And by nature of a brilliantly opportunistic try by Williams.

With regard to the "Strettle Incident", certainly we in the crowd could not see whether it was a try or not. Even viewing it on the large screens at the ground gave us no further clue. In that respect "No Try" was the right decision.

As to whether had a try been awarded, would the referee have allowed the kick to be taken?? With Steve Walsh who knows!! ...but it would have had to have been a magnificent kick to have converted it.

Great game to watch - on the edge of our seats the whole time.

Well done to Wales and let's hope they can go further and win the Six nations trophy. Maybe next year England??

2. Scotland v France

Another nail biter. Scotland were the better side in most respects but France knew how to take their chances.

In all three games that I have watched Scotland they have suffered from the same problem. Converting half-breaks and breaks into tries. OK they did get over the line yesterday but they had many more chances. They don't appear to be able to be in position to back up the players who make the breaks. Is it that the breaks are not planned or are the support players just not fast enough to be able to take that vital final pass

Scotland look as though they have a find at full back. He defended well and in attack looked dangerous every time, and he took his try well. The pack played magnificently throughout

Great game - wrong result.

3. Ireland v Italy

Ireland ran out easy winners after a difficult first half. Some lovely movements creating several tries. But could have been different if Italy had a goal kicker. With the two that they had Ireland knew that they could take chances of conceding penalties in the scrums and line-outs without suffering to badly.

All in all a good set of games.

And Man United won.....juuuuuuust !!

Cheers

Mike