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...

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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...

FRANCE 16-8 ENGLAND at Half Time;

It's the match of the day as far as the 6 nations is concerned and the French gets a try in the first minute courtesy of Yoann Huget !!! Mon dieu...

Another Huget try just after the quarter hour and it's looking pretty ominous for the English. You could call it chaos or just a frenetic game but Mike Brown saves England's blushes with 35th minute try to put them back in the hunt, and that seemed to wake England up, as they go into the break with some momentum...

Seems like it's gonna be a tough 2nd half, I'll still go with the French win though, hey what do you expect, I'm Welsh!!!!

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England do take that momentum into the 2nd half as they come out the much better team, and it's Luther Burrell that finishes off a move to score another try... Add a couple of penalty kicks and it's all turned around now, France 16-21 England.... Game On....

Trading penalties makes it 19-24 before France breaks free and Gael Fickou goes over for the try and the conversion is good 26-24 with only minutes to go....


FULL TIME: FRANCE 26-24 ENGLAND

England almost had this one in the bag, but let it slip, so it's Bet #2 ka-ching for me...
If France plays like this next week, it will be an interesting match with Italy, although I imagine they'll tighten their game up by then, and that's exactly what England need to do too. They'll be playing Scotland next week, we haven't seen them play yet, but England won't want to lose to them will they...

Another game which the match handicaps lost out, unless you bet on the '+' teams.. I don't think it will be 3 from 3 though as I quite fancy the Irish to make their 11/12 point handicap, well my betting balance will anyway...

IRELAND 11-3 SCOTLAND at Half Time...

A bit of a to and fro game to start with sees a couple of kicks to put Ireland 6-3 in the lead and it looked in danger of going to the half like that.
Even though both sides had some chances, either good defending or the play breaking down resulted in no tries... That was until the last moments of the half when a drive by Ireland who just missed out on a try because of a foot in touch, then managed to get it out wide just as the 40 minutes were up for Andrew Trimble to make use of the overlap and get the 5 points in the bag, just as well as the conversion is missed....

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2nd half and Ireland up their game, Jamie Heaslip goes over off a maul and it's 18-6...

Just under 10 minutes to go and Rob Kearney cuts back and gets the ball over the line, 28-6, this is the scoreline that people were expecting, although after the first half performance, it was looking dubious... and it also gives me 3/3 for the weekend, perhaps I'll stop now that I'm ahead....

A possible last seconds try for Ireland is disallowed by the video ref, they won't mind though, a win and it sets up what should be a cracking match next week with Wales,,,

FULL TIME: IRELAND 28-6 SCOTLAND

Jamie Heaslip gets the MOM, and the Irish will be happy with their 2nd half performance, Scotland though didn't cope with the pressure, so they'll need a good geeing up for next week if they want to be in the game against England...

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...

The second week of the Six Nations kicks off with what is arguably the match of the weekend with IRELAND vs WALES on Saturday at 14.30.

Both won their first games against lesser opposition so it's imperative they get this one under their belts to put them in good stead in the championship as well as for the bragging rights in what should be a hard fought game.

Ireland are slight favourites with a -2 handicap, so it's up to you as to who you think will come out on top. I'm going with Wales of course, but whichever way it looks as if it's going to be tight and probably a lowish scoring match so that's probably the better bet, although the line has been drawn around the 35.5/36.5 points mark, which may be just fine if the weather is a shite as it's predicted to be


Next up at 17.00 on Saturday is the Calcutta match between SCOTLAND vs ENGLAND and it's likely to be a bit blowey up there.

England been given a -10.5 handicap so based on the Scots display last week when they fell apart against the Irish, you may feel this is a bit of a gift, but it's generally a lot tighter up at Murrayfield so maybe not so much of a bargain. The points total again is set around 35.5 so again may be the better option to go lower, especially with a 'suspect' pitch being reported as well.



Onto Sunday and kicking off at 15.00 will be FRANCE vs ITALY, with the French quite the favourites with a -19/-20 handicap here.

They should also have the better of the weather of all the matches this weekend so expect the French to make it a comfortable 2 from 2.

The bookies seem reticent about putting up the total points level so it's the points handicaps in play at the moment. As we saw with Wales, if you give the Italians a chance they will have you, but I can't see the French giving them too much of anything to be honest, especially after last years defeat. So go with the French to win their handicap, or if you're having an acca maybe get them with a lower handicap, sorry Italy but I can't see you repeating last years result here.

(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...

IRELAND 13-0 WALES at Half Time;

Well, after a promising start with some hard play, Ireland have been the dominant side as it shows. They've not been letting Wales have a look in, made the most of the turnovers while not giving any, and played the kicking game superbly, giving them a deserved try to add to their 6 points.

Wales need to shake themselves and sort themselves out, they've made far too many mistakes and the Irish have said, Thank You very much...

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A better start to the 2nd half, but Ireland again with a further 3 points.

Bloody hell, Wales gets some points on the board, wonders will never cease, 16-3 with 24 minutes to play, not over yet but unless they can get to grips with the set plays from Ireland, they'll not have a chance.

Chin up Russy.

At least Liverpool won.