The Six Nations Blog

So, onto the last weekend of the Six Nations and I send you this blog from my hotel room at the Cheltenham Festival where we are looking forward to a tremendous Gold Cup this afternoon. I can assure you that meeting deadlines amidst the rigours of Cheltenham week is not easy but I think we will just get there.

As ever, the horses have been the focus this week but there has been a new game to play in town - the baiting of the English rugby fan which has provided more craic to the Irish visitors of Cheltenham than much of the horse racing to be honest. The wind-ups have been absolutely tremendous.

Back to rugby and a quick recap of last weekend.

Eric Peters is a senior associate in investment at King Sturge. He is a former Bath and Harlequins No 8 as well as Scotland captain and was vice-captain to Gary Armstrong when Scotland last won the championship (the last Five Nations) in 1999

Last Saturday's games first:

Ireland v Wales - The Irish played very well and are getting better as the tournament goes on. As you would expect from a good side they took advantage of the sin binning of Lee Byrne to take a lot of points. It's been a feature of the tournament that games have been turned around by points taken when players have been sin binned. Perhaps a lesson for coaches that persistent foul play does not work! Wales showed signs of making another late comeback in the game but it all came too late and the Irish were really too strong for them in what was a very entertaining match.

Andrew Jones resigned as head of retail at British Land in October of last year. He has just announced plans to float a new property company, Metric, focusing on retail property. He is an enthusiastic supporter of Welsh Rugby. Gwlad

The results from two weeks ago were entirely consistent with recent form. England and Scotland played out what was without doubt the most boring game of rugby the Championship has seen for many years, France confirmed themselves as worthy winners of this year's tournament, and Ireland retained their Celtic supremacy by comfortably beating Wales....again.

Looking ahead to this weekend, Saturday's fixture for Wales looks set to be a disappointing end to their 6 Nations campaign. It's not that I expect an Italian victory (although i wouldn't rule it out), it's the fact that a season that offered much promise will see us fighting to hang on to fourth place in the table. I really do wonder what the table would look like if Wales had indeed turned up for the first half at Twickenham those many weeks ago.

Gordon Wood is managing director of Dexter Wood & Partners. He is a former under 23 England rugby international and played for Harlequins and the Barbarians. He also runs the National Surveyors Sevens.

Wales actually played quite well in the first half for a change, but once again they were undone by the opposition scoring two tries while one of their players was in the sin bin. If the players do not learn from this 6 Nations they never will. In the professional era, good national teams can decide the result in just 10 minutes and all the sinbinings that I have seen this year have been fully justified. The referees handling/interpretation of scrums and the tackle area has come in for much justified criticism, but on yellow cards they have been spot on.

Ireland have to be congratulated once again - they scored the points when it mattered and each game a different player comes to the fore - a sign of a well organised and confident team. Wales didn't look as if they were going to win at any stage.

It was a beautiful warm weekend in the south east and I (along with many others!) was very pleased not to be at Murrayfield. I think the word "dire" sums up the game. The lawmakers/referees need to sort out the scrum and the breakdown. Neither team deserved to win, but it was Scotland with the lions share of possession, and having twice hit the uprights, they can count themselves unlucky not to have won the game. The defences were strong, but neither side really looked as if they would score a try, although Cussiter was superbly tackled by the prop Dan Cole when the line was beckoning.

David Erwin is head of capital markets at Cushman & Wakefield and a passionate follower of Irish rugby

All agents know how to play spoof and being good spoof players, they know that gloating is forbidden. So, no post-Twickenham gloating from your Irish correspondent, only real satisfaction from a professional job well executed and a memorable day out for Family Erwin with my folks returning to Ballymena as happy old Hectors.

Truth was we took our chances like a smart team - it is very unusual nowadays to win a game when you don't have the ball. With hindsight, Sexton was good, O'Gara too when he came on, our back row is genuinely world class and our two wings, Earls and Bowe, look like sharp tacks compared to their English counterparts' rather blunt knives. Told you there would be no gloating...

Gordon Wood is managing director of Dexter Wood & Partners. He is a former under 23 England rugby international and played for Harlequins and the Barbarians. He also runs the National Surveyors Sevens.

I didn't get the predictions quite right a fortnight ago. But how could I have foreseen the events of the day - England's pack gained 70% of the possession, yet the team did very little with it. Ireland, putting in tackle after tackle, had three scoring opportunities, and took all three! To win a game such as that on so little possession means that Ireland were far more streetwise, and often took the right options. Well done Ireland, you deserved to win! As for England, there are many things that are good, but when you fail to get over the gain line with so much possession, it either means that the players aren't good enough - which I don't believe - or the attacking flair has been trained out of them. Too many set moves, not enough allowance for flair. They need a word with Tommy Bowe or Shane Williams, or preferably both!

Andrew Jones resigned as head of retail at British Land in October of last year. He has just announced plans to float a new property company, Metric, focusing on retail property. He is an enthusiastic supporter of Welsh Rugby. Gwlad

After last week's results the championship looks Paris bound, although it could have been so different if Wales hadn't been so careless at the Millennium Stadium!

The last set of matches also exposed both England and Scotland's fragility and so this weekend's Calcutta Cup match at Murrayfield has the look of two drunks propping each other up!! England start as favourites but as we know anything can happen and the Scots are very capable of an upset..... or do I mean capable to upset!!

Eric Peters is a senior associate in investment at King Sturge. He is a former Bath and Harlequins No 8 as well as Scotland captain and was vice-captain to Gary Armstrong when Scotland last won the championship (the last Five Nations) in 1999

Looking back at the last round of matches:
Wales versus France - We saw Wales come back again but not quite managing the result they achieved in their previous fixture. This time having gifted France two interception tries Wales gave themselves just too much to do to win the game. France were efficient in the first half and did not have to do much to push ahead. Perhaps that is why in the second half they rested on their laurels a little and found themselves hanging on at the end. Had it gone on any longer Wales could have snatched it.

Andrew Jones resigned as head of retail at British Land in October of last year and will re-emerge in the retail property world soon. He is an enthusiastic supporter of Welsh Rugby. Gwlad

Well what a match Wales v Scotland turned out to be. We were down by 10 points with seven minutes to go and even the most bullish Welsh supporter would not have given us much hope. To our credit however we continued to battle away and probably played the better rugby in the second half and it was definitely one of the best finishes to a rugby international since little Jonny dropkicked to win the World Cup, many years ago.

I'm not sure Wales fully deserved to win over the 80 minutes but Scotland certainly handed us victory with another '17 point' yellow card. Wyn Jones' yellow against England cost Wales 17 points during his absence from the pitch at Twickenham, and it was the same points penalty for the Scots.....although Wales left it very late after squandering two penalties as they decided not to kick for three certain points!

Gordon Wood is managing director of Dexter Wood & Partners. He is a former under 23 England rugby international and played for Harlequins and the Barbarians. He also runs the National Surveyors Sevens.

After the dramatic actions of the last matches, most of us have just about recovered. Eric is probably still in a state of disbelief.

It is clear, however, that Scotland lost a game they should have won. If Sean Lamont had used the 2-1 overlap properly in passing to Kelly Brown when Scotland were 21-9 up, the game would have been over. To then have two sin binnings shows great indiscipline. The yellow cards are now having a real impact, provided that the team with numerical superiority uses it properly - viz England v Wales, and Wales in this game. Even then, with three minutes to go, Scotland got a penalty on their own line, yet the kick missed touch (which would have been a Scottish throw in), enabling Wales to run it back and secure the crucial penalty to tie the match. And even then, the restart kick went down the middle of the field, giving Wales all options to run it back. Andy Robinson was not amused.