The tide turns

My reluctance of but a few weeks back to talk at all about this year’s rugby has magically dissipated. Naturally this has come about because the teams that I support have had a good weekend. Had Bath not been schooled quite so comprehensively and to quite such an embarrassing degree by Exeter at Sandy Park it might even have been a great rugby weekend.

England were far too much for Wales at Twickenham, rediscovering their form from the World Cup at just the right point. The final scores were, frankly, closer than the game merited, as a result of England being down to thirteen men for the final ten minutes (through their own fault it must be said). On the run of the play overall they should have won convincingly.

Scotland – having come close but failed to register a win in their first two encounters – had finally done the business two weeks ago in Rome. Now they needed to beat the resurgent (and Grand Slam hopefuls) France at Murrayfield. The unbeaten French have started each game in the championship thus far at a gallop and have successfully hung on to the ensuing leads. Scotland, however, rather surprisingly find themselves flaunting this year’s best defensive record in the Six Nations – their parsimony with the points almost living up to the national stereotype. This promised to be a good contest…

…and close it was for the first forty minutes. Then – in classic French style – one of their young and hot-headed forwards reacted to a bit of the customary pushing and shoving by landing a hay-maker on James Ritchie’s jaw. Now, Ritchie is the sort of man for whom the term ‘nuggety’ was coined and he simply shook it off. The Frenchman, however, was duly dispatched for the remainder of the game and the Scots turned in an admirably ruthless performance to beat their Gallic opponents comfortably.

Joy!

The tournament itself, however, is now affected badly by COVID-19. Next week’s ‘Super Saturday’ (when all three matches are normally played one after another) has been reduced to just the first game – the Scotland/Wales fixture in Cardiff. The other matches will be played at some future date (probably in the Autumn – if at all) which means that there will be no actual tournament winner anytime soon.

The situation certainly does lend perspective to what is – and the end of the day – just a sport, but it is a great shame nonetheless. Our very great sympathies to all those who have been and will be affected by the virus.