The New Year and it's time for the Six Nations championship.

After France having a shocker last year they'll be out for some revenge and pride, and Wales will try to win about the only thing they can these days, although as long as they beat England, that's the main thing...

Wales vs Italy
Kicks off the championship at 14.30 Saturday, and the 2 way handicaps are around the 19.5 mark. I'm not backing that kind of margin in the first game, probably not a shrewd idea so maybe look at the total points instead, maybe the <43 points is worth a few quid...


France vs England
Kicks off at 17.00 on Saturday, and the 2 way handicaps around the -3.5 mark for France... or you can go for the 1-12 or 1-5 & 6-10 point margins for France.. as I said they'll want to get a good start, and I think they'll do it, although not staking mountains on it...


Ireland vs Scotland
Becomes the first Sunday match of the tournament, and kick off at 15.00. The 2 way handicap is around 12's, so Ireland with a -11 / -12 handicap could be the better pick...

So now I've put the mockers on all these teams, how about who will win the championship?
Wales are slight favourites at around 2/1 with England at 5/2. If you fancy Italy to come top, you'll get around 200/1, you'll also probably need a CT scan as well though... Although Italy at 8/13 for the wooden spoon may be worth a double along with Wales to win again!!!

WALES 17-3 ITALY at Half Time...

Two tries for the Welsh (Alex Cuthbert & Scott Williams) and they'll be fairly happy so far, not content but happy. They're obviously expected to win, and win big, but no need to do anything stupid now and get anyone injured, plus keep that overall score under 42 points for me to win my bet :)

Based on what I've seen so far, the Italians should be setting a date with that wooden spoon again, but only the first game, so plenty of time for them to improve yet...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm glad I've kept away from the handicaps as 2 minutes into the 2nd half and the Italians made a good break from inside their own half and Campagnaro grounds it for the try... 17-8 as Tommaso Allan misses the conversion...

But a penalty almost straight from the kick off awarded to Wales and Halfpenny also misses, unusual for him, so it stays 17-8...


Whoopsy... Halfpenny gifts the Italians with an interception and it's to Campagnaro who runs all the way right under the Welsh posts, so it'll be no missing the conversion this time... 20-15 and it now gets interesting with 10 minutes or so to go...
I can afford another try (or two pens) before my bet goes down the tubes...

and there's one penalty to Wales, 23-15 and 6 minutes left....


FULL TIME: WALES 23-15 ITALY phew close one that, the ref calls time after a Welsh knock on... Bet 1 in the bag, come on France lol...

Not a good half for the Welsh, they'll need to sort that out before they go to Ireland next week, but take nothing away from Italy, they kept the pressure up, so a decent(ish) first match for both I'd say, although the Italians will be much happier than the Welsh.

Michele Campagnaro gets the MOM for his 2 tries, although they face another hard test next time against a home side France, so I'll guess they'll be watching the next match with some interest...

First games over and little change on the overall betting front, Wales still slight favourites at around 15/8 with France now leap frogging England to 2/1 while England fall to 7/2. You can get Ireland at around 4/1 so you may want to get on now before this weekends clashes...

I see England name an unchanged side to face Scotland (who make 3 changes) in the Calcutta cup, current handicaps around -10 for England or 1/7 for the outright win...

Paul O'Connell who missed the Scotland game with a chest infection, returns to the Ireland team to face Wales who now has Sam Warburton leading them out once again... Probably the match of the 2nd week, with whoever wins puting themselves in a decent position in the table, though both teams will have to play better then they did in their first matches especially Wales, expect a good game, or at least hoping for one with a Welsh win of course... Handicaps are tight with Ireland the slight favourite with a -2 handicap, gonna be a tough one to call...

(07/02/2014, 18:54)RussyRover Wrote: arguably the match of the weekend with IRELAND vs WALES on Saturday at 14.30.

Spoken like a true Welshman. The match of the weekend is of course Scotland v England.

As you were... :D

(07/02/2014, 19:16)ScottyRampant Wrote:

(07/02/2014, 18:54)RussyRover Wrote: arguably the match of the weekend with IRELAND vs WALES on Saturday at 14.30.

Spoken like a true Welshman. The match of the weekend is of course Scotland v England.

As you were... :D

Of course, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau, may Y Ddraig Goch (the red dragon) rule supreme... We may not have too much here, but you all gotta admit, our flag is way cooler than the rest...

Chin up Russy.

At least Liverpool won.

So onto the Calcutta Cup clash between Scotland and England and the English get a penalty after a Scots offside but Owen Farrell shanks it wide, obviously the pitch is to blame...

But blushes are saved as Danny Care pops a nice drop goal over, first blood to England...

It's Grieg Laidlaw's turn to miss a penalty a few minutes later, a pity that as the English make that rarest of things, a try just under the quarter an hour, as Luther Burrell grounds it over the line, Farrell converts this time and 10-0 to England...

Laidlaw and Farrell miss another couple of penalties, thank fuck think the Scots, as otherwise England would be 20 points ahead and way out of sight by now...

Another penalty and Farrell gets it this time... If Scotland keep giving away penalties they ain't gonna be in this game... and oh so nearly another try in the closing seconds of the half as Burrell is just held up short, Scotland can count themselves lucky there.

SCOTLAND 0-13 ENGLAND at Half Time...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Scots manage to soak up early pressure in the first 10 minutes of the 2nd half, and keep England away from that try line.
Farrell pulls another penalty to the left, still 0-13 but can't see it remaining so for long...
Another 25 minutes or so to go, so keep those scores low lads so I can collect #5 from 5 with the <35.5 total score...

Alex Dunbar gets himself sin-binned and Scotland almost last without conceding, almost but not quite as Mike Brown skips down the side and gets his 2nd try of the tournament, 0-20, it's all going wrong for the Scots...

FULL TIME: SCOTLAND 0-20 ENGLAND

Mike Brown picks up the MOM, and England come away with a comfortable victory, very different to the previous closer run games here, and it gets them on board with 1 win and 1 loss...

Much was said about the pitch prior to the game, and it wasn't that good, but I've seen much worse, I don't think it can be blamed for the scoreline though.

Scotland propping up the table or at least until tomorrow, it's a fight with Italy for the owner of that wooden spoon...

FRANCE 9-3 ITALY at Half Time;

Not really the half that France wanted or expected, a good few penalties given away by both teams with France coming out slightly the better.

Italy have been keeping the French in hand, ok, the French don't seem in top form and Italy are playing well...

The 2nd half will be all telling, you would expect the French to come out and up their game and start to run riot, I guess we'll soon see...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well, the French do come out the stronger and it only takes them and Louis Picamoles 3 minutes to find the touchline 16-3, come on Italy, regroup, and play more like the first half..

Uh-oh... I spoke too soon as Wesley Fofana skips down the sideline over a tackle and makes it a second try in the 46th minute, it's also converted so they race to a 23-3 lead..

I had a bet with France and a -10 handicap for the 2nd half, so it looks good for me, I also put them with a -13 handicap in an acca.. Although after winning both yesterdays bets, I hedged last night and put a single on Italy, so am sure to cash in whichever way it goes...

Fuck me, there's no stopping the French now, Fofana makes a run and hands it off to Huget, but its the #11 Hugo Bonneval who gets the try, and Doussain now seems to have found his kicking boots as he converts again, 30-3, this could get ugly...

But it all settles down for 15 minutes or so, then a argy bargy few minutes sees first a yellow card for the French as Vahaamahina kicks the ball away, followed a few minutes later by a sending off for both sides for Rizzo and Slimani due to a bit of a dust up in an aborted scrum... Silly boys, so it will be 13 playing 14 for the remainder of the game...

Italy makes the score a bit more respectable looking with a late try for Tomasso Iannone, however its all too little too late...

FULL TIME: FRANCE 30-10 ITALY

It's another win for the French which puts them top of the table, although by looking at the game stats you would think the score line would be a lot closer than it was...

Looking good for France, and Italy will get to play fellow bottom strugglers Scotland in two weeks in the match that may sort out the wooden spoon, and based on performance so far, Italy should come out on top in that match...

Fofana to score sounds like a good bet particularly if Wales keep up the same level of performance they had against Ireland.
But given that Italy pounded the French and should have scored more could go either way.

a real surprise with the final result with wales dominating France with a 27-6 win. i looks like the defeat to Ireland has given wales a good chance for the champions ship with only England and Scotland to play. the key match is going to be the Ireland and England match tomorrow.