These are your rugby early morning headings for Monday, February 6.
Gatland’s ‘greatest choice’
Jamie Roberts states Warren Gatland faces his “greatest choice” over the coming weeks on whether to put his faith in the old guard for the World Cup or change them with the next generation now.
After the heavy defeat to Ireland, numerous are anticipating Wales to call the modifications and aim to more younger choices ahead of the clash with Scotland next week. Previous Wales centre Roberts does not anticipate his old manager Gatland to make any breeze choices simply yetm however states the minute is coming.
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“A little part of me believes Warren may back that exact same group once again going to Murrayfield,” he stated on Scrum V. “A little part of me believes he’ll do that and go ‘best men, this is last-chance saloon’.
“If they lose up in Murrayfield, there needs to be modifications. If they lose next weekend, they can’t win the competition and it needs to have to do with the World Cup and growing that next swimming pool of gamers. However they’re still in the competition.”
When the time comes to make changes, the next question is how Gatland addresses the balance of experience and youth. The Wales coach had been vocal about the reliance on senior stars when taking over, before naming a team with over 900 caps to face Ireland.
“It’s a tough call,” added Roberts. “It’s arguably the biggest decision Warren has got to make over the course of this Championship and leading into the Rugby World Cup.
“Does he try and give six or seven caps now to younger players ahead of the World Cup or rely on the older guard to take them through to what might be their last competition? It’s a really, really tough balance to strike and I guess we’ll see that in the selection.
“Maybe not for Murrayfield, but I think definitely for England.”
Wales to go over the tape non-stop
Wing Rio Dyer admits there will be some hard self-criticism within the Wales camp in the wake of the 34-10 home defeat to Ireland.
The Dragons speedster, who made his Six Nations debut in the Principality Stadium clash, says the performance will be heavily scrutinised in preparation for next Saturday’s meeting with Scotland.
“We are going to probably criticise ourselves really hard. We will be reviewing it non-stop,” he said.
“There are obviously some things that haven’t gone right that need to be criticised. We will think about what we could have done more.
“When we look back and reflect on where we went wrong, we let Ireland get into the flow of things in the first-half and ended up just chasing the game instead of being in control of it. Teams like that capitalise. They were all over us.
“In the second half, we wanted to come out and show that we care and try and put things right that were wrong. We knew that first half wasn’t good enough.”
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Scotland ready to end Wales jinx after stunning England
Captain Jamie Ritchie insists Scotland’s Calcutta Cup triumph must be a springboard to further successes and not another false dawn.
Gregor Townsend’s men toppled rivals England in their opening fixture of the Six Nations for the third successive year thanks to Saturday evening’s rousing 29-23 Twickenham victory.
The Scots were brought crashing back to earth by subsequent losses to Wales on the previous two occasions and ended fourth in the final championship table each time.
While Ritchie was eager to savour a further famous success over the Auld Enemy, he is determined to eradicate the frustrating inconsistency which has prevented his country pushing on to mount title challenges.
“It’s just the start,” said the Edinburgh flanker, ahead of another round-two showdown with Wales.
“We’re delighted to win and retain the Calcutta Cup but we’ve been in this position before and not backed it up so for us it’s enjoy each other’s company and enjoy this victory but come Monday we’re starting again and ready to go.
“It was the first thing we spoke about in the huddle after the win, we came together and said, ‘look, we’ve been in this position before and we’ve not backed it up’ and that for us is the most important thing.
“A strong tournament for us is five good performances so we will be looking for another one next week.”
Ireland: Fearless approach paid off
Hugo Keenan believes a fearless approach paved the way for Ireland to emphatically launch their Six Nations title charge with a devastating win which wrecked Warren Gatland’s return as Wales boss.
Full-back Keenan played a starring role on Saturday as the world’s top-ranked team subdued the Cardiff crowd by brushing aside the stunned hosts during a blistering start.
Ireland had previously not won a championship match at the Principality Stadium for a decade but stylishly snapped the losing streak as Welsh optimism for the start of the second Gatland era was swiftly snuffed out.
“We talked about not being afraid. The atmosphere is going to be loud, it’s going to be a fired up Gatland side that are going to try and prove a point so we wanted to start the game fast so that was a bit of my mentality as well,” said man of the match Keenan.
Win a Wales rugby shirt for the Six Nations below. You can also access it here.
“Everybody bought into that so I think the whole team performance in that first half was brilliant and the forwards were immense, weren’t they? We came out of the blocks quite well.”
Ireland head coach Andy Farrell agreed for the stadium roof to be closed in order to provide his players with the test of a more intimidating atmosphere.
Keenan feels France – the only major nation Ireland have yet to beat during Farrell’s tenure – represent the ultimate test and says his side need to up their game for this coming weekend’s likely title decider.
“Yeah, definitely,” he replied, when asked if that fixture is as big as it gets. “We’re going to be looking at what we can improve on.
“I think that second half there was a bit of a lull so we’re going to have to be better than that if we’re going to beat France at home.”
England – We won’t panic
Lewis Ludlam insists there is no sense of panic after England launched the Steve Borthwick era with a 29-23 defeat by Scotland that placed an early dent in their Six Nations title chase.
“There’s no panic about that performance but it’s important that we build on that because we have Italy coming and we need to be better,” Northampton flanker Ludlam said.
“It was a proper Test match. It’s hard not to be frustrated with the result. A few of our mistakes let them into the game and that’s Test rugby, they punished us for those mistakes.
“In terms of how we want to play and the fight we showed, it was really encouraging from an England point of view.
“There’s a clarity about how we do things. I feel like this group is closer. There’s a really deep, emotional connection over what it’s like to play for England. The players want to fight for each other and for the coaches. It’s encouraging and while disappointing that we didn’t get the win, we’re heading in the right direction.
Defeat hard to swallow says Italy star
France survived a serious scare in Rome to see off Italy 24-29 in a tense finish at the Stadio Olimpico.
Despite a flying start the French could not shake off the hosts who quickly improved as the game progressed. They trailed 14-19 at the break but took the lead heading into the final quarter via a penalty try, but France scored once again on and survived a late onslaught to kick off their tournament with a nervy win.
It was a bitter pill to swallow for the Azzurri though, who were excellent.
Italy fly-half Tommaso Allan told ITV: “It’s quite tough to swallow this defeat. We had our chances. In the first half we had too many errors. We gave 19 points to the French off of our mistakes.
“We have to find our balance of execution. We will be more diligent the more we do. There’s a lot of positive to take from this. We are very confident for next week’s game. It’s small margins. I need to make those kicks and next time we can kick to win as well.
“Were improving every week. We have to start winning as well now. We know we can win. We showed some good rugby today.”
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