Weekend Round-Up: Proof this is the best Six Nations for years

Catch up on the best of the weekend’s rugby action – here are the games worth looking at all over again.

Six Nations: Italy vs Ireland
Full Game | Condensed
If the clinical dissection of a team is your thing, you’ll have this match on a permanent loop. Ireland, admittedly in more pleasant conditions, did to Italy what Wales had tried – and pretty much failed – to do on the opening weekend of the tournament. First, they battered the Azzurri into submission, then they romped in the wide open spaces. Nine tries later, this lesson in scientifically precise rugby was brought to a merciful end. It was uncompromising and unrelenting stuff, though Garry Ringrose’s late try will have wistful fans reminiscing about Brian O’Driscoll’s personal demolition of France 17 years ago.

Six Nations: Wales vs England
Full Game | Condensed
In the preview for this match, we predicted Wales would throw everything at England, then rip up the foundations of the Principality Stadium and hurl the rubble at them, too. That prediction, if anything, underestimated the fire-and-brimstone efforts of the hosts. Wales, roared on by their passionate fans, bullied and battered England for long periods of a pulsating, thrilling match that has already been hailed a classic. But the visitors, chasing their 16th win in a row to close the gap on the All Blacks‘ winning streak, hung in and clung on, to set up a grandstand finish that came with a cruel, simple, savagely executed twist.

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Six Nations: France vs Scotland
Full Game | Condensed
This game promised breakneck, breathless action. For long periods, it delivered. And, until the death, the two sides stood toe-to-toe as Scotland threatened to head home with their first win in Paris since 1999 – the swansong year of the old Five Nations championship. The lead changed hands four times after Camille Lopez had kicked the hosts into an early lead, but that was only part of the story. France’s loose forwards were in full-on snarling rampage mode, while Scotland – denied a way through Louis Picamoles, Kevin Gourdon and Loann Goujon – were forever sniping and searching for a way around the man-mountains in front of them. This was a worthy afterparty to the weekend’s main event in Cardiff.

Aviva Premiership: Exeter Chiefs vs Wasps
Full Game | Condensed
Seventy points. Ten tries. As many conversions. Two try-scoring bonuses. One red card. No points from penalties. In the shadow of the Six Nations, the Aviva Premiership produced arguably the rugby match of the weekend as Chiefs and Wasps slugged it out at Sandy Park.