Loose Pass: Ireland ‘concerns’, Lions fielding ‘project players’ and Georgia make a mockery of ‘ridiculous’ Nations Championship
Loose Pass is here to delve into the major talking points in the sport.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with notes on an opening weekend of the Six Nations which delivered few surprises, some British and Irish Lions questions and a glance at the level below…
Plus ca change
It was as if the interceding months of rugby simply hadn’t happened. France were fantastic. England ran – literally – out of puff. Wales were awful. Scotland were all of those things and more across the 80 minutes. Italy showed potential. Only Ireland looked to have developed since November, with the silly penalties that blighted the November Tests largely eradicated and the patience and precision that had them pegged as possible World Cup winners returned.
Yet for Ireland, despite the obvious short-term targets and ambitions for both team and individuals, there ought to be mild concerns about even the medium term. The crucial trio of Bundee Aki, James Lowe and especially Jamison Gibson-Park will all be 35 by the time the next World Cup rolls around. All the centres Ireland used on Saturday are over 30. Of the front-line back rows, only Caelan Doris is currently under 30. It’s all very well to win games now and Lions ambitions surely play a role in the retention of Aki especially, but an element of succession planning feels missing. And improved though Ireland were, they were also not as good as a couple of years ago.
France might be better than a couple of years ago. A shellacking of Wales is hardly instructive at the moment, but the nilling was impressive with barely even a kickable penalty on offer to the visitors.
The French were clinical without ever really looking like they were going through the gears, happy to play with each other, happy to wait for the opportunities to come, happy to advance their own succession planning by emptying the bench with half an hour still to play.
But the red card to Romain Ntamack was an outlier among all this, a random act of stupidity that will twist Fabien Galthie’s planning. The return of the maligned Matthieu Jalibert? The continuing reliance on the Toulouse triangle with Thomas Ramos as the preferred back-up? Antoine Dupont at pivot against England? None of those feel like Hobson’s choice, not least against an England side that simply cannot find the necessary belligerence to grind out the tight wins.
In Rome, Warren Gatland will surely be playing for his future. He talked of positives and there were plenty, but the attack, especially, was all by numbers when two or three players hinted that the potential might be for more. They play against an Italy side that was clearly second best against Scotland, yet was good at taking chances and defending patiently and on another day, might have kicked on from 19-19.
But it was Scotland who kicked on, and they now face Ireland, with members of the team openly confessing: “This is the one they want”. Can they? Absolutely, but the mental resilience needs to be better against an Ireland team that will pick off any chance far more ruthlessly than Italy did. With France unlikely to slip up against an anguished-looking England, the clash at Murrayfield is surely the highlight of the weekend and the one that begins to look as though it may define this Scottish team.
British and Irish?
There’s been a steady trickle down the years, with perhaps Riki Flutey the most prominent one to kick it off, but on current form and experience, it is quite feasible that there could be a proper collection of players in this year’s British and Irish Lions squad who are ‘project players’.
Duhan van der Merwe, Bundee Aki, Jamison Gibson-Park and James Lowe are all shoo-ins. Pierre Schoeman and Kyle Rowe have better than sporting chances of being selected. There are one or two others as well who could yet make a bolt for it during this championship.
Whenever you discriminate on nationality you are always skating on thin ice. So let’s be clear: this is not some kind of personal prejudice against these excellent players, far more a lament as to how professionalism and this sort of sporting globalisation can dilute the precise tradition that modern events are founded on.
It’s going to feel mildly odd, as a Lions fan of some fifty years, to see just how many players could be in the Lions’ starting XV whose childhood and cultural upbringing was most likely marked with precisely zero ambition of pulling on the red jersey.
Meanwhile, in D2
Interesting times in the “Six Nations B”? Not entirely. After a pretty misguided decision to expand the Rugby Europe Championship from six teams to eight, ostensibly to throw a little wider open the doors to qualifying for the new expanded World Cup in 2027, Georgia slammed at least one door firmly shut with a 110-0 destruction of Switzerland at the weekend. That’s Georgia, who have an entire squad of players in the Top 14, against Switzerland, whose flagship team is Geneva some five tiers below the Top 14.
Elsewhere, Germany fought gamely and led Romania for a while before some stark differences in fitness were made clear in the second half.
Spain were impressive in their win over Holland, while Portugal and Belgium fought out an exciting fixture in Lisbon, the home side triumphing 40-30.
The claims of Georgia for a better seat at the top table are not going away though and it really needs addressing. While relegating Wales – or whoever is bottom – would be a clear shot in the foot from the Six Nations, ignoring Georgia’s repeated and credible claim to develop further by playing at the higher level needs to be incorporated somehow.
With World Rugby likely to ignore Georgia in the ridiculous Nations Championship as well, it’s really starting to become up to the Six Nations to somehow show the way. Failing to give this well-run and game-enriching nation its dues is becoming one of the sport’s biggest failings.