With a week to go before the Six Nations tournament opens, the coach of defending champions England has decided to try and shift the pressure away from his boys by labelling his very successful side as the underdogs.
In so stating Eddie Jones has also heaped compliments on Ireland and Scotland, the latter a team on the upbeat after showing much improvement since 2015, beginning with the World Cup.
The Scots also had an encouraging 2017, beating Australia first in Sydney in June and then repeating that at home in last November’s Test during an autumn in which they were one pass away from beating the All Blacks.
One other positive from Scotland in recent times has been the players’ willingness to run the ball and go for tries, a much appreciated change in mentality.
Following the encouraging November internationals the Scots were so upbeat with the momentum swing in their favour that they wished this year’s Six Nations would start immediately after and not on February 3 when they travel to Cardiff to play Wales.
If Jones is one coach who talks down his team’s chances, which cannot convince many that he truly meant what he said, Warren Gatland is one who insists that his boys can win the title this time although the injury list in his squad has grown longer, with flyhalf Dan Biggar and wing/fullback Liam Williams the latest casualties. For now that means Wales is missing seven first-choice players.
While its world ranking hasn’t changed drastically, there is little from their results across all competitions and tours in the last four years that would support the prediction of a Welsh success this year.
In the Six Nations, this period has been one that first belonged to Ireland and then England. The question now is whether England can achieve a historic three-peat, a first in either the Five or Six Nations and that’s going back a long, long way to 1910 with a couple of interruptions along the way.
Based on form from RWC 2015 until last November, Wales looks the weakest of the four home nations.
The injury list of England, most pundits pick as favourite, is also getting longer, with centre Henry Slade and wing Jack Nowell both out for a few weeks. In the forwards the latest casualty is prop Kyle Sinckler.
But there is good news though with the recovery process of powerful centre Ben Te’o who could not be available sooner rather than later and could make the squad against Italy on February 4. If he is declared fit and plays, this would be the first game for Te’o since late October.
Despite the many injury concerns, Jones surely cannot claim to be under duress as his boys train in Portugal ahead of the game in Rome, not against such a weak side like Italy. His first real test will be on the following weekend in London against Wales, the pretenders to the throne.
If it wants to go far Wales must first beat Scotland and while that tie would have favoured Wales previously, it is not expected to follow that pattern this year, especially also because the Scots do not have many serious injuries to deal with.
As written earlier, it’s not easy to try and anticipate which way France will go, especially with a relatively young squad missing experienced old hands like Louis Picamoles and Francois Trinh-Duc, both excluded from the squad by new coach Jacques Brunel, but the experience Ireland has will ensure that the boys in green will be able to deal with any surprises in Paris.
This is one opening game Ireland should win.
Coach Joe Schmidt too hasn’t had to deal with any serious injury to the frontline players until now and thus should have a strong 23 for the game.
Despite his success with Ireland since the last few seasons, Schmidt is one coach who doesn’t say much about his team or adopts an aggressive stance in relation to what he says about his opponents.
What is certain is that with the exception of Italy, the remaining five teams will make this a very competitive Six Nations, with the results not as predictable as those in the Rugby Championship. Neither should there be any cricket scores, again with the exception of maybe games involving Italy.