It was another brilliant weekend of Six Nations action, in which France climbed up to pole position with one round to go, after a huge win in Dublin against Ireland.
It is now a three-way shootout between France, Ireland and England (and Scotland if they win by 52 points!).
Some did well, others not so much.
Here are some of the biggest stock risers and fallers from the penultimate weekend of the Six Nations.
Risers
Zander Fagerson
It hasn’t been the easiest Six Nations for Scotland prop Fagerson, and his Lions potential has been put into serious jeopardy after a poor few games.
But against Wales, he was back to his best and has massively boosted his chances of being on the plane.
Standard of him, he was everywhere on the pitch and did more than what a normal prop does.
But also maintained the basics in the scrum and was too good for Wales to handle.
Maxime Lucu
Antoine Dupont is going to be a huge miss for France after his bad injury against Ireland, but Les Bleus look to be in safe hands with Lucu set to be his replacement.
He put in a huge shift against some tough opposition and didn’t allow the tempo to be dropped, which is a huge credit to his game.
Some would have doubted his ability to replace the best in the world, but he showed that he is more than capable of doing so.
Welsh Spirit
As will be mentioned later on, Wales’ quality left a lot to be desired against Scotland, especially in the first half.
Unlike in the last few months under Warren Gatland though, they kept going and came close to a historic comeback.
It wasn’t to be and they still have a long way to go, but Matt Sherratt bringing back a bit of pride into the team was good to see, and deserved a mention.
Fabien Galthie
It was a huge risk for Galthie having a seven one split on the bench, but it worked a treat.
When Dupont got injured, some people thought that the lack of backs on the bench would be exposed, but the versatility in the side made up for it.
Ireland was outmuscled in the end, and the fresh legs were brought on at exactly the right times by Galthie, who kept the tempo and physicality high over the course of the 80 minutes.
France’s head coach has rightly had a lot of criticism for the lack of structure in the side at times, but proved that he is still a great rugby mind who knows what he is doing.
Fallers
Sam Prendergast
There has been a lot of talk on Prendergast after a poor game against France, but a lot of it is harsh and he is still a huge talent.
With that being said, he had a poor game and after people considered him a Lions cert, he is no longer in many people’s squads.
Not up to scratch and not as good as he has been, the conversation has now shifted onto whether he is ‘overhyped’.
Everyone has bad games, and he is still young, but this weekend was one to forget.
Ireland
From being touted as the Grand Slam winners, to having the Championship out of their hands, their loss to France was hugely disappointing.
Beaten by the better team, they were second best in basically every metric.
It is not hard to see why they are the biggest losers of the weekend.
Should they somehow manage to win it on the last day, all will be forgiven, but for now the mood in Ireland has turned extremely sour.
Paolo Garbisi
It wasn’t the worst performance ever from Garbisi, who was decent.
The reason why he makes this list is because of his missed kick, which flipped the game on his head.
As Italy, you need to take any small chance that you get if you are to get a result, because realistically there is a gap in quality between themselves and a lot of the teams they face.
While his teammates did that with the tries scored, missing a penalty to take the lead must go down as a missed opportunity.
England were in the ascendancy from that moment on.
Welsh Quality
As mentioned, the fight was there for Wales, which was a positive.
A very worrying sign was how lacklustre they looked for large parts against a Scotland side that were there for the taking.
Their second half will paper over the cracks, but the team is still not up to scratch, and their next head coach will have a huge job on his hands to get anything out of this group of players.
Some of the team, like Jac Morgan, are clearly up to the level, but there were too many passengers against Scotland.
READ MORE: Six Nations Team of the Week – France unstoppable in Dublin with six players included
