After Ireland’s statement 38-17 first round victory away over France, Tinteán’s rugby union correspondent Steve Carey previews the Men’s Six Nations 2024
What a first weekend it was! A tipper’s nightmare, a rugby lover’s delight. Three away victories, a big fright for England from Italy, an agonisingly close comeback by Wales, falling just a point short, and, most surprising of all, a thumping bonus point victory for Ireland over the heavily-fancied French. Fortunately for me this ‘preview’ spared me the ignominy of predicting round one. Already it is no exaggeration to consider Ireland favourites to lift the trophy on Saturday, March 16. If they do this to France, what will they do to everyone else?
If Ireland were nursing a World Cup hangover, they’ve well and truly shaken it off, romping home by 21 points in Round One. Admittedly, French second-rower Paul Willemse virtually sealed the home team’s defeat, being sent off twice for high tackles and leaving his team a man short for an hour. Darling Oscar would describe it as carelessness, but given the intense focus on player safety, and the huge disadvantage it left his teammates to deal with, it is nigh on unforgivable. You wouldn’t want to be his cat.
Once upon a time the northern hemisphere tournament was its own thing, with its own history, heritage and narrative. Now there’s a larger, second story: the Six Nations is all very well, but where is this team right now, and where will it be, come the next World Cup? Increasingly the quadrennial World Cup cycle casts a giant shadow over the calendar.
When at the end of October the last one, World Cup 2023, had been fought for and all the blood, sweat, tears and ink dried, the famously camp William Ellis trophy remained right where it was before the whole jamboree started, sitting in the very same trophy cabinet it occupied before ears were taped and boots laced. Business as usual, except this time around South Africa beat New Zealand, in the process becoming the only team to claim ultimate victory four times. All the Six Nations teams have managed one World Cup between them. It’s a dismal record, and there were no signs that it’s anything other than business as usual.
It was World Cup business as usual, too, for Ireland. Their hideous Quarter Final hoodoo remains, having lost to the eventual runners up. That the match was such a classic would have been no consolation, nor would the fact that their bad luck was in the shockingly uneven draw, not how they played, nor the result, their only loss in their past nineteen games… none of that was any consolation. Quite the opposite, probably.
So, take a moment and breathe… World Cup done and the trophy dusted and returned, the whole four year travelling circus takes to the road again, with a high turnover of captains and squads, as coaches start the process of getting enough game time into their new players to be competitive come October 2027, when the carnival rolls down to Australia.
To illustrate, three of the national coaches – Wales’s Warren Gatland, England’s Steve Borthwick and Italy’s Gonzalo Queseda – are in their first year in charge, though Gatland is in his ‘second coming’ incarnation.
Another sign of a changing of the guard is the influx of new captains for all but one of the six teams. Fittingly, it takes two men to fill the boots of Ireland’s talismanic Johnny Sexton: the granite figure of Munster’s Peter O’Mahony, who’s already worn it ten times, and new owner of the kicking tee and number 10 shirt in Jack Crowley, also of Munster. First round opposition’s France captain Antoine Dupont is taking the season off to prepare for Olympics Sevens, and was desperately missed in the first round thumping. (A sidebar: given that a large element of Dupont’s magic is finding space where there is none, how will he go in Sevens when space is not at a premium?)
England too are without their captain, Owen Farrell, who needed to take a break to recharge and recover, not least from the despicable and inexplicable moronic booing he copped in France from his own team’s supporters. Wales’s Alan Wyn Jones has reluctantly but inevitably opted to call it a (very long) day at last after an extraordinary and exhausting 170 caps, though there’s a grim joke in his statement that he was ‘stepping away’ from the game, when it’s about a decade since he could last step anywhere without hobbling and wincing. He hands over a rather tattered and bloody captain’s armband to the 21 year old Dafydd Jenkins. Only Italy has continuity, with captain Michele Lamaro remaining in charge.
You could, I suppose, make the case that this overhaul of coaches and captains gives the Six Nations’ narrative an added dimension, as we witness a new game plan come together and a squad find its confidence and self-belief. In truth, it gives coaches and the blazered bigwigs who appoint them a cast-iron alibi for being useless for a year or two. ‘Look at the mess I inherited,’ they shrug, mournfully: ‘give a bloke a chance.’ Eddie Jones, past master at blaming the previous lot of no-hopers and blowhards and buying himself breathing space, even managed the impressive trick of blaming himself, describing yet another woeful England Six Nations in the year before the 2023 World Cup as a ‘work in progress,’ conveniently omitting to mention that the coach of England presiding over this farce was, er, (consults notes) Eddie Jones, and had been since 2015. Even the notoriously thick England head honchos eventually worked that one out, and booted Eddie just in time for the World Cup. (While we’re at it, it might be worth Joe Schmidt, Andy Farrell’s predecessor in charge of Ireland, reading up on Eddie’s famously knockabout press conferences. As the newly-appointed coach of a shambolic Australia, he’ll need all the excuses he can get. And whose mess is he clearing up? Er (consults notes again)… Eddie Jones! Jobless coaches might want to keep an eye on the Jobs Vacant pages of the Japanese press, which is where Eddie’s gone next to bemoan his threadbare inheritance.)
Remarkably, however, Ireland’s supremo Andy Farrell has chosen to pass up this opportunity, publicly declaring that the ‘tear down and rebuild’ model doesn’t appeal. Just as well, then, that in their first match they comprehensively tore down France, in Marseille (the Stade de France is being prepared for the Olympics). Ireland won seventeen matches, lost by a narrow margin to the mighty All Blacks, and now they’re just stacking up the W column again. Business as usual indeed.
But even Eddie Jones, like a stopped clock, was bound to be right from time to time, and he reckons you need something over 800 caps to win a World Cup. (Winner South Africa’s squad had 1,319 going into France 2023.) So where do Ireland stand right now? The 2024 squad is highly experienced, with 1,282 caps, but with a dozen players having fewer than 20. A good blend, then, of innocence and experience.
Ireland also enjoys the massive advantage of continuity, with no fewer than ten of the starting 15 playing for Leinster (with another four from Munster and one outlier in Connacht’s Bundee Aki). This means there’s an ‘Ireland way’ into which the new players fit, characterised by pods of players giving multiple options for short passes and through runners. Young players come into the system and play it their whole careers, so that by the time they pull on the green they know just what’s expected. Accordingly, under enormous pressure, new fly half Crowley warmed to his task, and fitted Sexton’s number ten mantle admirably.
We watch sport because of its ability to astonish, and Six Nations 2024 has already caught us on the hop. So I make the following prediction with every confidence of looking the fool, and a great deal of anticipation for what lies ahead…
SIX NATIONS 2024 PREDICTION
- Ireland – Grand Slam (ie 100% record)
- France
- Scotland
- Wales
- England
- Italy
SIX NATIONS 2024 ROUND BY ROUND
Round 1
Saturday Feb 3, 7am: France 17 v 38 Ireland (Marseille)
Sunday Feb 4, 1.15am: Italy 24 v 27 England (Rome)
Sunday Feb 4, 3.45am: Wales 26 v 27 Scotland (Cardiff)
Round 2
Sunday Feb 11,1.15am: Scotland v France (Edinburgh)
Monday Feb 12, 3.45am: England v Wales (London)
Monday Feb 12, 2am: Ireland v Italy (Dublin)
Round 3
Sunday Feb 25, 1.15am: Ireland v Wales (Dublin)
Sunday Feb 25, 3.45am: Scotland v England (Edinburgh)
Monday Feb 26, 4am: France v Italy (Lille)
Round 4
Sunday March 10,1.15am: Italy v Scotland (Rome)
Sunday March 10, 3.45am:England v Ireland (London)
Monday March 11, 2am: Wales v France (Cardiff)
Round 5
Sunday March 17, 1.15am: Wales v Italy (Cardiff)
Monday March 18, 3.45am: Ireland v Scotland (Dublin)
Tuesday March 19, 7am: France v Scotland (Lyon)
All games shown in Australian live and exclusively on Stan Sport
Steve Carey
Steve Carey is a regular contributor to Tinteán, and a Rugby aficionado. He is also the Treasurer of Bloomsday in Melbourne and author of its upcoming original play, Mr Beckett and the Rainbow Girl.
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