The Six Nations Blog

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.

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 fixtures, the Wales versus Scotland game was a great match although bitterly disappointing for Scotland. It was a great opportunity for us to win in Cardiff. I think Andy Robinson needs to buy Mike Blair a rule book to let him know that kicking the ball into touch from the kick off ends the game if it occurs after the 80 minutes are up! If in doubt Blair should at least have been asking the referee the question!

For the first 73 minutes Scotland played outstandingly well and they looked like they had done enough until they were let down by their own indiscipline. It is impossible to argue with either penalty awarded against Scotland or the yellow cards but it had a huge effect on the result. Until then Scotland had won the battle of the contact areas and had succeeded in nullifying the Welsh backline threat. The lesson clearly is you have to play the full 80 minutes.

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

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Another visit to Paris, another drubbing. We weren't good and made too many mistakes and they were close to being top notch. Arguably, we had the better of a pretty even first 20 minutes and had the bounce of the ball been kinder to Gordon Darcy or Jerry Flannery not done an outstanding impersonation of Chopper Harris, then things might have been different. Hands up though, on the day we were outclassed and have to move on to Twickenham.

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 last week's blog postings nobody got too much wrong and only then when they followed their allegiances, Wales unfortunately did not beat England and a Scotland win did not quite materialise.4

The Irish won as expected but will be disappointed that they did not capitalise on first half domination with some tries. However, the Italians have great spirit and that showed in the second-half in the way they held out. Nick Mallet needs an 80 minute performance from them to win particularly this week. Undoubtedly the Irish will need to improve on last week's performance if they are to beat the French in Paris. As I've written before home advantage will be a huge factor in the tournament and it will be a tall order for the Irish to win at the weekend. Brian O'Driscoll will probably need a hatrick performace like in 2000 to get the result!

Unfortunately for the Scottish, a highly "focused" French team turned up at Murrayfield. The Scottish desperately missed prop forward Euan Murray and the French dominated the scrum. Few if any sides can win a match when they are under so much pressure in the scrum as it puts them completely on the back foot. France play with a 'rush' defence and the way to beat this is either turning their defence by chipping in behind or getting it wide quickly but they need to use dummy runners to commit the outside defenders which they failed to do and France's backs could then drift accross and nullify Scotland's back play. I was disappointed with Scottish back play overall. Dan Parks has come in now at number 10 ahead of Phil Godman and will clearly provide more of a kicking game against Wales at the weekend.

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

It is great to have things underway and, with the notable exception of an overly patriotic Welshman, my fellow bloggers pretty much called it right on the first weekend.

What have we learned so far? Here's my top 10 from the first weekend: