Doesn’t sound silly

Too right, for the first time this year i watched all available matches here in France (so all of 'em except one if i remember correctly). I thank Squidge for opening my eyes and making me love Pauline Bourdon as much as i love Antoine Dupont!

@@thibaudduhamel2581 yeah Bourdon is outstanding!

When I turn people on to rugby, I send the the women's 2017 RWC final. Great match, a bit of everything including proper tries.(edit: that should say “prop tries”!)

@@thibaudduhamel2581 I tried this year but as a Scotland supporter my heart could only take so much of watching Scotland get absolutely dunked on every match.

Completely agree, but from a selfish point of view, I’d love for him to have a look at the Ireland v Italy 3rd place play off. There’s a big focus on the women recently and any kind of platform for them would be a boost, there is a plan in place to go semi pro within next 5-10 years, and while that’s not great in the present day, who was looking at Scotland’s men 10 years ago getting very excited

Those 2*

It's French way to play rugby

They really are!! All talk has been her in the run up and in the autumn's, who will take the place of Katy Daley McLean.

Meg Jones.

@@williamb4652 she's not had a whole lot of game time with the red roses though, even if she has been playing great with Wasps. I think Harrison is a more obvious choice, with a lot more experience. They don't have a lot of time wither way to fully replace Katy, even if they had a couple of years, it'll be interesting where they go from here

I think that Helena is a terrific player and the best replacement for KD-M. Comparing these two is a little unfair , the former is just starting with the RRs - how good was the latter when she started out. Helena has the potential to be better, she is faster out of the blocks, trickier, stronger in defence and with a bigger boot - the game management will improve.

@@SandSMat I completely agree, it'll be interesting to see what happens from now until the WC next year. I think Rowland will probably be the long term replacement for KDM, I just wouldn't rule out Harrisons experience, she's played 10 at 6Ns before, super series, and at saracens. I'd have to look back at her games properly and compare the two, but a good problem for Midds to have!

no but also you probably should

(Good luck mate, hope you smash it tomorrow)

Yes you should do; it well worth it. There's quite a few full games on youtube to show their development.

French are semi pro.

Italy got some sort of scholarship for players-students from this year on, but apart from that I think everybody but England and France are fully amateurs

I think our youtube commentator forgot to analyse ref's huge mistakes not only in scrums but at least 2 or 3 side entries on rucks from England...the penalty for France after a scrum played by the french n. 9 without even touching the ball with her feet.. That one was absurd.. Anyway great first half, impressive performance by both teams but 2nd half was poor on technique

Early engage, not pushing straight, boring in, shoulder dip, how many reasons do you need? I'm sure they've been penalised wrongly sometimes, but not every time. Also don't think this was a particularly brilliant game, England were disappointed with their error count and watching it live it looked like a mess for long periods.

@@randykawasaki You've seen how dominant they are in the area. Do you really think they'd need to cheat like that, risking to get penalised, while they can just smash their opposition by playing normally? Very few scrums were actually played in the 2nd half. On each that was, the English were sent backward. But on the many that weren't played, the decision went England's way. France are utterly dominant in the scrum (and have been for quite a few year), so it's in their interest to play them. England were utterly dominated, so they have no interest in playing them. Now, knowing this, which team should be penalised when you can't play a scrum? The team that want to play it, or the one that doesn't?

@@lolivey8393 The real problem is with that kind of domination up front, France should be be beating everyone. But they aren't, and that is not simply down to referees. Game management plays a big part. I agree that the standard of reffing isn't always what it should be, and last night's game was even worse. The other problem is that France and England have no real competition in Europe, and somehow that needs to change.

@@randykawasaki And I perfectly agree with what you say here. On the game in this video, their dominance in the scrum was all for nothing, because you still need a referee to reward you (or at least not penalise you). But we can still see that when the referee actually decides to acknowledge that domincance, it helps a lot. Take the match from friday. Everytime the referee blew her whistle for a scrum, it went France's way. And that's how it should be (in the scrum I mean). Given how tight the games between the two nations are, maybe it's just the little push they'd need to win the thing. We'll never know for this game, as it didn't end, but despite being behind on the scoreboard, France were on the front foot, dominating (and not only in scrum), with 20 minutes to play, with a team that was actually better than last saturday (as good as Boulard is, she's nowhere near Trémoulières yet, and Vernier is so much better that Ulutele I can't understand how she's not the usual starter). France being behind is down to what you described: horrendous game management, and a defense that can just swith off (those 2 tries from Abby Dow were wonderful, but also really soft and down to huge french mistakes). It's the thing with that French team. Usually, they can do everything as well as (and sometimes even better than) the best teams in the world, like England and NZ, and suddenly switch to being horrendous in aspects they're normally really strong at, for no discernable reason. Most of the games I've seen them lose is down to them being very bad at something they're usually good at in a short burst, whatever that might be, individual tackling, collective defense positionning, attack, whatever.

Honestly i can't say the refereeing was not correct but it was very frustrating to watch from France. The 3 decisions right before the english try (involving what looked like a knock on by an english player and somehow ends up with a scrum for england) were strange but also unexplained. And since the pundits were in Paris thanks to the covid, remotely commenting the game, they were of little help to understand the referee decision. Very frustrating to lose a game on a moment like that...

thank you for your service, random Frenchman

@@machinwx Yes, I appreciate it was confusing. The referee thought she saw a knock-on by England, so when France lost possession she whistled and brought the play back for a scrum to France. She then realised that it wasn't a knock-on (the ball went forward off Cleall's leg) so she reversed the decision and gave the scrum to England. (That's kinda fair, as England had regained the ball in the play that followed the supposed knock-on, but lucky for England in that the scrum position was far better.) At the scrum the referee then gave a free kick to England for an early push by France. I couldn't see that early push, but maybe being the person on the spot, the referee saw something not obvious on tv.

@@mikado6201 Thanks, it makes more sense !

@@machinwx I think this try should never have happened though, since you should not whistle when there's only a knock-on advantage which is played by a clearance kick. They went from gaining a lot of field and getting out of pressure to... well, you know :'(

Surely the Celtic Nations would not lose by 50 points if they invested more in their teams.

Back in the 1980's and 90's, Wigan won the rugby league challenge cup 8 years on the trot. Their name is there in the record books, there's no asterisk next to the name and no footnote telling you that they were the only full-time professional squad in rugby league, at the time. Other teams paid their players, but they were all part time, with other jobs. They had to go to work on Mondays and train 2 nights a week, whilst Wigan trained 5 days a week. By the time of their last win, almost all teams were full-time and within a few years Super-league happened. Someone has to go 1st, that's how we move forwards. I know you wrote this a year ago, now, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and New Zealand also have their players on central contacts and others will follow. But, The Roses are still the best.

It's not usually like that, Wales have had an unfortunate year. Everyone else has been building

Because watching Shuhan Lillicrap play an entire game of rugby by herself is too painful*

France aren't amateur you muppet

@@michaelmikeykellymikeydama5405 France aren't part of the home nations you plank ..

But what is the point of inferring to the home nations when it is the SIX Nations? I'm sure Italy need a wee push.