Brendan Gallagher’s Six Nations review

Jack NowellRound One: Parisse's moment of madness
What so soon? My jacket pockets were still stuffed with ticket stubs and rail tickets but time waits for no man as the cranked back into action with the opening game in where really should have beaten France.
Carlo Canna looked like he might be the fly-half Italy have been praying for since the retirement of Diego Dominguez but crucially had departed the field injured when Italy pressed for a last minute match-winning dropped goal. Luke McLean and Kelly Haimona were both on the pitch but, in his adopted city against old and familiar opponents, Sergio Parisse took the fateful decision to drop back into the pocket and take the pot at goal himself. The great man doesn't get much wrong but that was a really bad call.
At Murrayfield, England's new coach Eddie Jones had already flattened Scottish optimism and confidence by dismissing any notion that England might be vulnerable after their poor showing at the World Cup. Of course, England would win he proclaimed, England don't lose to he insisted. And he was right. Scotland looked deflated and round-shouldered, England sharp and edgy. crunched through the tackles and got England on the front foot and, in truth, the 15-9 scoreline flattered Scotland.
It wasn't that close.
Wales can be slow out of the blocks at the start of a Six Nations tournament and that was definitely the case in Dublin in the Sunday game where they trailed 13-0 after 27 minutes. One more score and Ireland would have been away but, sustained by a barnstorming game from Jamie Roberts, Wales inched their way back into contention with a try from Taulupe Faletau and solid goal-kicking from the Rhys Priestland. A 16-16 scoreline left Wales looking the slightly happier given their poor first half. With France away next and a six-day turn around, reigning champions Ireland were already sensing this might not be their season.
 Sergio ParisseRound Two: Ireland's title defence in ruins after just six days
Jonny Sexton spent two not entirely happy years in Paris with Racing and there weren't many positives for the fly-half to take out of Ireland's 10-9 defeat at the Stade de France either.
Yes, France targeted him to a degree – but no more than most teams will target a key opposition player – and one late body check from Yoann Maestri was probably borderline yellow. But in the great scheme of things France's tactics were hardly the brutal assault described by some. Ireland and Sexton, with three penalties, pegged away to earn a 9-3 half-time lead but
Ireland failed to create the chances to put France away and paid the price when Maxime Medard scuttled in for the decisive score.
After just six days Ireland's defence of their crown was over.
Eddie Jones had again been landing the verbal blows ahead of England's visit to Rome, insisting that he expected his team to give Italy a “good hiding” and that he wanted England “to be brutal up front with no Italian player left standing at the end”. Not the kind of language we ever heard from Stuart Lancaster.
Italy were not amused and piled into England for 50 minutes to seek retribution and possibly to prove their manhood and machismo. So much so that they completely ran out of steam in the final quarter and England, without doing a huge amount in all honesty, sauntered to a morale-boosting 40-9 win with the simplest of hat-tricks from Jonathan Joseph. Game set and match Eddie.
Down in , Jamie Roberts was once again the stand-out as Wales beat Scotland 27-23, their ninth consecutive win against the Scots but it required a barnstorming last 20 minutes from the Welsh – the best rugby they produced in the entire tournament – to close out the win.  Roberts scored a well-deserved try during that period and marked his return to top form with a glorious trademark effort using that unique combination of pace, exaggerated step and sheer power to score a cracker.
Even then the Scots came back with a fine individual try from the in-form Duncan Taylor who had already distinguished himself with a remarkable
covering tackle to prevent Tom James scoring what looked like a certain try.
Round Three: Nowell to fore as England win ‘Aussie Rules' game
Talking of try-saving tackles, Jack Nowell's on Robbie Henshaw at an important stage of England's 21-10 ‘Aussie Rules' win over Ireland was right up there with anything we have seen at Twickenham in modern times and the full length image of that tackle will certainly win any rugby photograph of the year award.
Jones, for the third game in a row, played a verbal blinder – goading Ireland into a more expansive game than they
probably needed to play at Twickenham with his ‘Aussie Rules' jibes while, although he possibly overstepped the mark in bringing Jonny Sexton's parents into the debate over the fly-half's run of injuries, that comment also hit a raw nerve.
On the pitch Billy Vunipola was immense while the future of England rugby – – made an impressive debut.
In Cardiff the night before there had been little to enthuse over in Wales' turgid 19-10 win over France which rather obscured the fact that it was Wales' fifth win on the bounce against the French, something even their great team of the Seventies couldn't manage. Former players were not happy and Welsh fans complained bitterly on social media about the poor fare.
Even the Wales try from George North came after a comical error by Jules Plisson who declined to fall on the ball and get his jersey dirty and chose instead to try and fly-hack the ball away. And missed.
Not all Six Nations games are going to be classics but this was downright poor and again the cry for a revamped tournament and promotion and relegation went up.
If that system was in place it would be Italy playing off against Georgia this year with Italy condemned to the wooden spoon after losing their ‘must win' game to Scotland in Rome 36-20. Italy have no strength in depth and as injuries began to come into play they were bitterly disappointing against a Scotland side whose season was also on the line. In fact a Scotland defeat and the talk of regime change would surely have started up again.
A much-improved Scotland performance strangled that thought at birth, however, and they finished the job in style with a later try from Tommy Seymour courtesy of a timely back-of-the-hand pass from Stuart Hogg.
 Jonny SextonRound Four: England home and hosed with a round to spare
Four matches in and Ireland finally hit their stride against a struggling Italy side who had fired their final shots in anger in Rome against Scotland.
Without their injured half-backs Edoardo Gori and Carlo Canna and with both second rows helped off in the first half, it all went pear-shaped from the off for Italy and damage limitation quickly became the order of the day. In fact, losing 51-15 was almost a result in that respect because it was looking truly horrible at one stage early in the second half. Ireland, with their forwards dominating, finally found some fluency and ran in nine tries, a record for them in the Six Nations.
The best of the lot, and arguably the team try of tournament, came from Jamie Heaslip after a mesmerising length of the field move just before half-time. As John Inverdale said on TV it was the kind of move you expected Phil Bennett to pop up in at any time.
England and Wales, on paper, was the biggest match of the tournament, the Championship decider but a curiously low key build-up confused everybody. Were we all suffering Test rugby fatigue? Eddie Jones did his Trappist monk bit for a week or so before breaking cover to complain about the legality of Wales' scrummage after Robin McBryde had done likewise about 's technique.
But generally it was all pretty soporific which played into England's hands. After their World Cup defeat in October, Jones' didn't need to fire up his squad, it was Wales who needed to find the intensity. As it happened they produced possibly the worst opening 40 minutes of Gatland's eight-year regime. Whether by chance or design, Jones had again won the war of words and mind games.
And so to Murrayfield. Early in his career there were stories about Stuart Hogg possibly being a cousin of the late Georgie Best, something we have never been able to stand up satisfactorily. On the evidence of Scotland's 29-18 win over France, their first win over the French in ten years, I wouldn't entirely reject the notion.
Not only did Hogg show sparkling footwork to score Scotland's first try but his miraculous overhead batted pass at the end to put Tim Visser in was genius of a high order, the sort of impromptu skills you would expect from Best himself. In a thoroughly satisfying Scotland performance Duncan Taylor also starred again with another fine individual try in a win which restored the feel good factor of their World Cup campaign.
Round Five: Grand Slam for England … at last
Wales finished off a patchy Six Nations with a 67-14 trouncing over Italy, a record Six Nations win for the Welsh who scored nine tries. Not that they needed any help but referee Roman Poite got them off to a flyer by ignoring the most obvious offside of the tournament in their first try and then not one but two forward passes for their second and after that it was all one way traffic. Italy, punch drunk with injuries, were miserably poor and unrecognizable from the team that could and should have beaten France first up.
As the tournament drew to a close it was over to Dublin for a distinctly feisty Celtic dust up with three yellow cards and as close to an old fashioned punch up as we ever get these sanitised days. There were mistakes aplenty but Ireland were good value although that man Hogg again provided the indelible memory with a scorching first half try for Scotland
A then finally England delivered the long awaited Grand Slam. It wasn't pretty, in fact it was downright fraught but these things usually are.
Importantly they kept playing attacking rugby and with George Kruis and Maro Itoje dominating the lineouts England got home safely. They did it the hard way, a season with three away wins but there can be no argument. Sir Eddie Jones anybody?

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