LONG READ Regrets, a renaissance and a rout

Winning, like death, pays all debts. Or so they say. I’m not so sure. Do back-to-back, one-point scrapes on their own cabbage patch suggest England have finally solved their yips? Or, in truth, was it more a case of France and – now – Scotland losing rather than England winning? Your penny, your pick.

Certainly, long-suffering Scottish supporters will be in no doubt. Their team looked gift horses in the mouth in both halves and were penalty magnets in the second – nine in all – which was borderline suicidal. They played most of the rugby, dominating almost every attacking metric but, when it mattered, their contact skills were lamentable. Too often they built themselves a platform under the English posts but then failed to reinforce it.

And then there was Finn Russell. How to explain it? In last year’s Calcutta Cup at Murrayfield, he nailed three conversions and three penalties – six from six – almost with his eyes shut. Scotland won 30-21. Last Saturday, however, Russell couldn’t hit a buffalo’s backside with a banjo. Three shots wafted wide, any one of which would’ve won the game. Hopefully, his Mum would’ve warned him there’d be days like this.

But, in fairness, his mates didn’t do him any favours. Ben White could’ve run the first try five metres closer to the posts, likewise Duhan van der Merwe with the last. It’s basic stuff. Russell also wasn’t helped on his final, game-winning shot by the French referee, Pierre Brousset, shunting him to the touchline when he should’ve been three metres closer in. Small margins but they add up.

Scotland will also feel aggrieved about England’s solitary ‘try’. The only person who saw Tommy Freeman ground the ball was the referee whose opinion, happily enough if you’re English, is the only one which counts. But none of the TV replays provided any corroborative evidence that the ball had kissed the grass underneath several hairy, blue forearms and even Freeman himself seemed dubious.‘The referee awarded it, therefore I grounded it,’ was his guarded comment in the aftermath. ‘I’m not going to say anything different. He must have seen it on the ground.’ Rarely have words been chosen more artfully.

Look, there are occasions when winning ugly is all that matters; backgammon with the kids at the kitchen table being a prime example.

England, though, will rightly care not a jot for Scottish hard luck stories and why should they? They’ve more dog in them than an Alsatian and they’re finally starting to eke out the kind of squeaky wins that eluded them for the thick end of a year. But while Saturday night will have been a roisterous reunion with a trophy they’ve not laid eyes on for 1477 days, Sunday morning would’ve been somewhat more sobering.

Because it really wasn’t pretty. ‘Gripping but gruesome’, said Nick Mullins on ITV as England hoofed yet more possession into orbit amid groans from the stands. ‘Boring’, said Jamie Heaslip on RTE. ‘Stodgy … negative … I don’t get it’, said Brian O’Driscoll. ‘They simply play no rugby’, said Will Greenwood. ’Ugly’, said Will Carling on Twitter. And, indeed it was.

Look, there are occasions when winning ugly is all that matters; backgammon with the kids at the kitchen table being a prime example. Hey, what are we playing here, son; how or how many? But when you’re promising evolution and you deliver regression, even in victory, you can’t get too snippy if folk start pointing fingers.

Yet there were significant English pluses. Ben Curry made a mighty impact off the bench and was a pain in Scotland’s arse; Fin Smith’s 50-metre, game-winning penalty was plumb-line nutsy and both Tommy Freeman and Ollie Lawrence are surely genuine talking points in any Lions’ conversation. But Jamie George and Elliot Daly both need to start and Marcus Smith, for all his myriad talents, is no full-back. When George Furbank’s finally fixed, you suspect he’ll waltz straight back in.

The Player of the Match – as is now traditional in any Calcutta Cup game – was Duhan van der Merwe; that’s three straight gongs in succession. If he looked slightly surprised, he wasn’t the only one given Jamie Ritchie played the game of his life and Maro Itoje was the standout presence. Yet again, the England captain was everything and everywhere all at once. No-one since Richie McCaw pushes the limits of the laws to greater effect than Itoje.

Cardiff, like London, proved that the scoreboard doesn’t always tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The numbers – quite rightly – gave the victory and with it a Triple Crown to Ireland but the ‘winners’ on the day were the hitherto hapless Wales who presented the second best team in the world with a puzzle it took them nigh-on eighty minutes to solve. Yes, the Welsh ended up second in a two-horse race but, as WH Auden once wrote, ‘sometimes it’s defeat which proves you’re alive’ and Wales will now look at their remaining games against Scotland and England and think anything’s possible.

As brave as Easterby’s team selection was, the one lesson he’ll have learnt is never, ever to leave a fit and firing Bundee Aki out of the starting fifteen.

Matt Sherratt should’ve spent the week gearing up for nothing more strenuous than his brother-in-law’s 50th birthday bash. Instead, in just three training sessions, he somehow turned confusion into cohesion. There was scarcely a single Welshman who didn’t merit a mention in dispatches but Ellis Mee was the signature success. If only his right arm were six inches longer. Yet every selection the head coach made was emphatically vindicated. Here, too, was cast-iron proof that the power of positivity is sport’s secret sauce.

Ireland, though, were not be be gainsaid. Rattled but resilient, they did what good teams do and found a way – in Simon Easterby’s words – to dig themselves out of a hole, thanks largely to the acumen and intelligence of their half-backs. And as brave as Easterby’s team selection was, the one lesson he’ll have learnt is never, ever to leave a fit and firing Bundee Aki out of the starting XV. His 30-minute cameo – covered in blood and sponsor’s dye, he finished the game looking like a beetroot and tomato salad – did as much as anyone to swing the game back Ireland’s way.

That said, the 20-minute red card that brought Aki onto the field is a blight on the sport, assuming we’re serious about player welfare. Garry Ringrose is a consummate professional and no one’s idea of a cheap-shot merchant yet his hit on Ben Thomas was a poor misjudgement. (Why, incidentally, is it always the luckless Thomas who gets whacked in the chops in this Six Nations?) But if we’re to eradicate reckless head-on-head contact from the game, red has to mean red and not orange; what’s more, the bans handed down need to be longer. It’s non-negotiable.

Not since Michelangelo decided the Sistine Chapel ceiling needed a fresh lick of paint has Rome witnessed anything quite so jaw-droppingly stunning.

But as grateful as Ireland will be to have banked the win, they may yet regret missing out on a try-bonus point, the more so after France’s barnstorming performance on Sunday. Not since Michelangelo decided the Sistine Chapel ceiling needed a fresh lick of paint has Rome witnessed anything quite so jaw-droppingly stunning.

This was rugby as God Almighty meant it to be played; heft, pace, intelligence and a team with an almost intuitive understanding of what it was doing, when it was doing it and who was best placed to be doing said doing. They were irresistible; a swarm of locusts versus a field of corn.

The remarkable, record-breaking 24-73 scoreline might suggest Italy were atrocious and certainly their defence, at times, was tissue-paper thin. But they were actually 10-7 ahead after 20 minutes and hanging tough until the sheer puissance of the French blew them clean off the park. And when your heavies can offer the likes of Leo Barre and Louis Bielle-Biarrey – LB and LB squared – the freedom to strut their stuff, you’re in what the chirpy David Flatman on ITV described as ‘full chat mode’. Both were almost unplayable.

Three paragraphs on France and no mention of Antoine Dupont? Apologies for keeping you waiting. The guy’s ability to push the tempo, identify space, manipulate a defence and offload in heavy traffic is without parallel. Every French string seems to have Antoine on the end of it. No question, Ireland will need to come up with a cunning plan, not just for France but for Dupont. He’s that special.

But it’s now set up quite beautifully for what Dupont himself described as the trip to ‘Dooblin’, where the bookmakers still reckon the Irish will sneak it. Nothing but a win will suffice for the French whereas a victory for Ireland would – effectively – seal all deals. Tape up the windows and nail down the furniture. It’s going to be seismic.