6N : What Styles Will We See?

Last years 6N started with a bang. High tempo, high quality games filled out the first two weekends, then for some reason (maybe the weather?) the series went to hell in a handcart with some of the most turgid entertainment free, error prone displays I can recall. Absolute shambles at its low point, before a spectacular return to form in the final weekend when Wales wrestled an unlikely looking victory by handing England their arses in a display of empassioned accuracy and intensity that led many to believe that Wales were finally "on their day".

What's in store for us this year? Will the dodgy pitches in Scotland, Wales and France turn the tournament into a mudbath? Will any of the sides look to implement an attack minded strategy? Or will we see heavy use of spoiling tactics, percentages and time wasting? I've always thought try bonus points might be used to try to inspire more positivity, but I'm told it'll never work because of a mixture of maths and tradition.

Will the dark horses remain locked in their stables? And which France will show up? Can Italy muster an historic win over one of the major players?

What of controversy? Will we have a faget of refereeing man sausage ups as occurred in prior years? Or will we all be cheering the whistlers for their indefatigable accuracy?

Golly, I can hardly wait.

Harry Styles?

With his 1D colleague forging a football career the unveiling of Harry as a rugby hero is probably on the cards. Can he play outside centre?

Ireland will play Joe Schmidt rugby hopefully. Try to create space in the middle of the park rather than out wide. Hopefully they will play high pace rugby and try to catch some teams off guard. Quick taps and lineouts and ballsy calls.

Irelands form badly dipped at the end of the 6 nations last year because over 15 capped players were injured by the end of the tournament.

This was a combination of bad luck and an over emphasis on an ultra physical approach. I am hoping that this wont be an issue this time round as a result in a change in game plan and more rotation. There will always be injuries however, so this needs to be factored in.

Hmmm, I'd hope they don't err into helter skelter with those ballsy calls. Ireland look solid in their structured play, and that's when I think they're at their best. Although they certainly have some players who can cut loose, which is nice to see.

England will be powerful and competitive up front and try to play territory with a total lack of any kind of resemblance of attacking back play or intent to get to the try line.

Oh and when said plan fails...there is NO plan B...

GloriousEmpire wrote:Hmmm, I'd hope they don't err into helter skelter with those ballsy calls. Ireland look solid in their structured play, and that's when I think they're at their best. Although they certainly have some players who can cut loose, which is nice to see.

Dont you think the Wolfhounds won on Saturday because of ballsy calls? Firstly rather than kick at goal Madigan sent a penalty down the line and then from a maul with good momentum Boss broke early and sniped in for a try. Secondly again from a penalty Madigan took a quick tap and scored a fairly opportunist try.

GeordieFalcon wrote:England will be powerful and competitive up front and try to play territory with a total lack of any kind of resemblance of attacking back play or intent to get to the try line.

Oh and when said plan fails...there is NO plan B...

I agree. They will wear most teams down with this game plan but is it sustainable?

Also what happens if Farrell has an off day with the boot?

England, Wales, France and Italy all start off with a plan to dominate with the pack, be it at the scrums, breakdowns or line outs. Scotland and Ireland in my personal view are more expansive from the get go, playing more with ball in hand out wide than the other four.

Then once Wales, England, France have established dominance up front do they expand their game.

France and Wales in a sense try to emulate NZ, but are obviously nowhere as good or consistent in the execution of it.

England doesn't use finesse when they play wide, they play direct running rugby similar to SA and therefor they depend on accurate passes and offloads, fast pace and hard running players.

Scotland has their biggest challenge facing them in execution, their accuracy often lets the down.

Ireland, well similar to Wales, they can look very busy with ball in hand, but often their breakdowns let them down to the point where front foot ball at pace is a scarce commodity

I expect things to go pretty much according to that.

Wales were finally "on their day"

  I like that!   

Expect to see Ireland going up the middle from set plays.

Example:



Another example was Rory Bests spinning pass during the NZ/ Ireland game that allowed men to go up the middle and offload. Watch the match highlights, it happened about 4-5 times in that match.

Wales will go up the middle from set plays but don't expect anything as remotely creative as that. It will be Jaime's run into brick wall tactic that usually ends up in a stodgy midfield ruck where the ball takes 47 years to reach the next play.

slane wrote:Expect to see Ireland going up the middle from set plays.

Example:



Another example was Rory Bests spinning pass during the NZ/ Ireland game that allowed men to go up the middle and offload. Watch the match highlights, it happened about 4-5 times in that match.  

That's a nice try, but look at the defense. This comes back to my earlier post about composure and trusting the guys around you.  Three defenders number up on the same decoy rather than keeping on eye on their own target and the guy who tried to tackle sexton leaps out of the line and creates the dog leg.  A more disciplined defense would shut that move down - it was kind of deep and there is only one runner joining the line, so it hasn't created a numbers differential.

Take the point about the tactics though, it's a nice pass from sexton. He reminds me of Aaron Cruden without the pace

GloriousEmpire wrote:

slane wrote:Expect to see Ireland going up the middle from set plays.

Example:



Another example was Rory Bests spinning pass during the NZ/ Ireland game that allowed men to go up the middle and offload. Watch the match highlights, it happened about 4-5 times in that match.  

That's a nice try, but look at the defense. This comes back to my earlier post about composure and trusting the guys around you.  Three defenders number up on the same decoy rather than keeping on eye on their own target and the guy who tried to tackle sexton leaps out of the line and creates the dog leg.  A more disciplined defense would shut that move down - it was kind of deep and there is only one runner joining the line, so it hasn't created a numbers differential.

Take the point about the tactics though, it's a nice pass from sexton. He reminds me of Aaron Cruden without the pace

The problem for Ireland over the last few years has been our style of play. Kindey had us playing like SA, trying to bash holes in the other teams defence with the likes of Healy and SOB instead of playing to our strengths like those in the clip above. Last year we seen the effect of this with as many as 13 of our first team injured for most of the Six Nations.

IMO Schmidt is a much smarter coach than Kidney and has recognised this flaw in our play and changed it since he took over, hence the way we played against NZ. I don't see that changing now, if anything I think the Irish players are going to get better at it.

Yes, the secret to Ireland's failures in recent years was their collision mentality.  Collect ball - head for the nearest collision, hit it as hard as you can (for no reason as you already know what you're going to do with the ball) retain possession as you fall, wait for backup to allow you the recycle - repeat...repeat, repeat, repeat.... then conditioner if desired.

Ireland's hope now is that we have a coach who realises that rugby must be much more dynamic and that he has the players to make it so....just as Kidney had before him.  We Irish have always said its our coaching system that is letting down players who are designed for a different game - and often got sneered at in the process. (Kidney laboured with the weak standard of players he has - ain't his fault).  It's for the Kiwi now to prove us right all along.  
This might not be a perfect campaign.  We'll still be lucky to get third.  But I think we'll see some nice stuff played.

Nice to see you respecting your kiwi coach appropriately. You lads could teach a thing or two to those ungrateful Aussies, I tell you.

Clearly Ireland loves kiwi coaches (and players)

nganboy wrote:Clearly Ireland loves kiwi coaches (and players)

Only fair considering how many Irishmen NZ have capped over the years, it has to go both ways.

nganboy wrote:Clearly Ireland loves kiwi coaches (and players)

We do. We like the style they coach... our players certainly like them...and they in turn (players and coaches) seem to relax and enjoy their time here too. Maybe we just have similar human characteristics and enjoy each other's company?

NZ has probably had much more players of Irish origin. Even Dominic Crotty the guy who scored the killer try at Landsdowne is 2nd or 3rd generation Irish.

As for coaches we have had three national coaches from NZ and they have done a good job bar Kidd maybe (so far for Schmidt).

Murray Kidd, Warren Gatland and Joe Schmidt.

All three coached at club/provincial level in Ireland before been given the Ireland job.

Kidd: Garryowen
Gatland: Galweigans/Connacht
Schmidt: Mullingar/Leinster

Cyril wrote:Harry Styles?

With his 1D colleague forging a football career the unveiling of Harry as a rugby hero is probably on the cards. Can he play outside centre?

Who and what is 1D?

I don't think there's any secret that Irish rugby is copying NZ rugby. Long may it continue I say! Ireland doesn't really have a traditional style associated with it unlike most other countries. These days there is a style emerging of quick tempo rugby with handling and passing skills important as well as rucking. We're only going to see that style now with Schmidt in charge. For the past few years ireland didn't really have a style.


The welsh style is most unique in the world game I think. Thats probably explains why they do so well in Europe but so badly against southern hemispheres big 3. Use big backs to make the hard yards instead of forwards.


The Scots will play fast and loose. It requires good handling skills which they lack.


Italy play a direct forwards based game. Last season they played expansive rugby and like the Scots played fast and loose. They had plenty of offloads playing that way.


England play a forwards based kicking game with some big backs trying to crash over the gain line. The like to strangle opposition with a good defense too and are hard to beat.


France, well who knows. They're a bit all over the place. French flair seems to be a myth these days. They have good individuals that can do something inventive but as a team they're a bit predictable.

profitius wrote:I don't think there's any secret that Irish rugby is copying NZ rugby.

In what way?
Schmidt is a Kiwi and therefore will inevitably have some Kiwi influences but I think he has also developed his own ideas over his career. Irish rugby administration is modelled on the Kiwi template alright.

profitius wrote:
Long may it continue I say! Ireland doesn't really have a traditional style associated with it unlike most other countries. These days there is a style emerging of quick tempo rugby with handling and passing skills important as well as rucking. We're only going to see that style now with Schmidt in charge. For the past few years ireland didn't really have a style.

Yes they did. They played like SA with an over emphasis on physicality and winning collisions.

profitius wrote:

The welsh style is most unique in the world game I think. Thats probably explains why they do so well in Europe but so badly against southern hemispheres big 3. Use big backs to make the hard yards instead of forwards.

This is only under Gatland. If anything he has changed Wales traditional methods to a more forward orientated percentages game.

profitius wrote:

The Scots will play fast and loose. It requires good handling skills which they lack.


Italy play a direct forwards based game. Last season they played expansive rugby and like the Scots played fast and loose. They had plenty of offloads playing that way.


England play a forwards based kicking game with some big backs trying to crash over the gain line. The like to strangle opposition with a good defense too and are hard to beat.


France, well who knows. They're a bit all over the place. French flair seems to be a myth these days. They have good individuals that can do something inventive but as a team they're a bit predictable.

Scrumpy wrote:

Cyril wrote:Harry Styles?

With his 1D colleague forging a football career the unveiling of Harry as a rugby hero is probably on the cards. Can he play outside centre?

Who and what is 1D?

Rap Artist - works for Justin Bieber - carries his potty back stage and sets it up.

GunsGerms wrote:

profitius wrote:I don't think there's any secret that Irish rugby is copying NZ rugby.

In what way?
Schmidt is a Kiwi and therefore will inevitably have some Kiwi influences but I think he has also developed his own ideas over his career. Irish rugby administration is modelled on the Kiwi template alright.

Even when the provinces were set up they were designed on the kiwi model. Ireland have an advantage that we have ready made provinces.


I think its no coincidence that there's so many southern hemisphere coaches in Ireland either. Those running the game recognised that coaching needed an upgrade. There's also the other plan of trying to get all the provinces playing a similar type of rugby, which is what the do in NZ.

I believe big Toby Faletau has the big afro back.......Hibbard still has his Jurgen Klinsman and HairBear is sporting a wedge.