What does England’s win in Cardiff this weekend tell us about England Rugby?
The answer is not much.
Saturday’s win in Wales gives England fans the mathematical hope of a Six Nations win, but don’t start rearranging the hardware in the trophy cabinet just yet. The Wales match is a game England was expected to win.
More than just the fact that England is a better side, the Welsh were coming off a week full of drama with contract negotiations that led to the cancelation of training sessions and threatened the match entirely. There’s no way to know for sure if the distractions contributed to the difference in the game’s outcome, but it’s highly likely.
As Rafters had previously stated, the short term loss of one game is worth the price of the long term gain of having major contract talks out of the way. But factoring in the distractions to Wales during the week, England should have defeated Wales by a much larger margin, and while England still has a long shot at winning the Six Nations, Rafters believes it is highly unlikely.
Ireland controls their Six-Nations destiny and will most likely win the grand slam with a perfect twenty-five points on the table. Scotland’s two remaining matches are at home against Ireland and Italy, a home stand they will split. France finishes its Six Nation’s campaign at Twickenham followed by hosting Wales in Paris, two wins.
The biggest problem facing England is that they have their two toughest matches of the series ahead of them, France at Twickenham and Ireland at Landsdown Road. These are contests that Rafters predicts will result in losses, but it’s the margins that will be telling, especially in Dublin.
Given this senario and barring two miraculous wins at both Twickenham and in Dublin by enormous margins, England will find themselves finishing with eleven points and fourth on the table.
Not a World-Cup winning performance.
Six Nations and World Cup parallels
In some ways home fans are tougher on their teams than their opponents, often seeing the enormous dark cloud for each sliver of silver lining. Rafters is no different. We’re as biased about our rugby as the New York Times is about their news and without the pretense of objectivity.
Through some good fortune, England finds itself in World Cup Pool D, by far the weakest collection of teams in the four pools. In theory, England’s only real challenge comes from Argentina, who could easily hand England a loss in pool-play. Japan could play spoiler with another miracle, upset. Samoa and Chile round out the balance of the table and should not pose a real threat.
From the standpoint of competitiveness, England’s World Cup draw parallels their Six Nations fixtures, two of three easier matches at the start, followed by progressively tougher contests.
Think of Scotland and Argentina as opening match spoilers in our Six Nations-World Cup comparison and the road through the World Cup elimination fixtures as the equivalent to the last two of England’s Six Nations matches against France and Ireland.
The good news is that the World Cup pool draw gives England a nearly, sure-thing, quarter-final berth and provides them the opportunity to gel before facing the pool C runner up in Quarter Final One.
So think of the next two England Six Nations matches as a reasonable predictor of what to expect in six months.
Six Nations round-three results
Saturday, February 25
Italy (13) hosts Ireland (1)
Rafters Predicted: Bonus point win to Ireland with a 30+ point margin.
Result: So a fourteen-point margin is a lot less than thirty-plus points, and rafters continues underestimating the Azzurri, who seem to play the big teams tough at home and fold on the road, but a last minute try sealed it for the Irish who are on their way to a Grand Slam.
Italy 20
Ireland 34
Wales (9) hosts England (6)
Rafters Predicted: England takes the win in Cardiff with the bonus point.
Result: Distractions abounded for Wales in the lead up to this week’s match in Cardiff, but England’s performance won’t go down as overly triumphant in the annals of rugby.
Wales kept it close until a brilliant try by England’s Ollie Lawrence put the game away for good. Not quite the bonus point win that Rafters’ predicted or hoped for.
Read more about Rafters’ experience in Cardiff later this week.
Wales 10
England 20
Sunday, February 26
France (2) hosts Scotland (5)
Rafters Predicted: France over Scotland by four.
Results: If this was the only Six Nations match you watched over the weekend, you picked the right one. Two red cards drew both teams down to fourteen for the majority of the match. The ten-minute interval between the red cards only yielded a five point advantage to the French, but the damage was done.
Scotland’s play was equal to their previous two matches, but wasn’t quite enough to power past the mighty French. In a game that was much closer than the final score might indicate, France sealed the win and a bonus point with a late try.
Despite the loss, Scotland holds on to second place on the table, the points differential being the only difference in a three way tie with England (3) and France (4).
France 32
Scotland 21
That’s our little corner of the big picture and one fan’s view from beyond the rafters.
Afters
If you are interested in watching the Six Nations and Premiership Rugby in the United States (live or replays), you can stream all the matches on Peacock. Xfinity includes Peacock with some cable subscriptions.
Flo Rugby offers replays of the Autumn Internationals, USA Rugby, the Rugby Championships, and Super Rugby.
The Rugby Network broadcasts the MLR for no charge,
Fine Print
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