And the moral of the story is, don't count your chickens, as this Nike Grand Slam England 2011 video would testify....
Grand slammers: no-one.
Winners of the Six Nations: England.
Most emotional moment: Italy beating France and Nick Mallet's tears of joy.
Best try: Imanol Hardinordoquy for France against Scotland.
Peter de Villiers award for craziest coaching speech: France's Lievremont announcing that his team has 'betrayed' him after they fall to Italy by one point and branding them as cowards, followed closely by the dour Warren Gatland moaning about Ireland's penalty count when in fact the Welsh had the highest penalty count of the lot.
Best individual performance by a back: Chris Ashton's four try swallow diving extravanganza against Italy.
Most scandalous moment: the illegal throw in by Wales to clinch a try after the ball boy and touch judge got rule 19.2 in the rugby book wrong.
Most huffiest commentator: Brian Moore for the beeb although kudos to him for being possibly the first man in the history of the sport to use the word 'hitherto' while commentating on a game of rugger.
Best match: A dead heat - Ireland V England and Italy V France.
Worst match: Scotland V Wales (I did the unthinkable and fell asleep during an international test match).
Most overrated first five eighth: Toby Flood.
Funniest quote: Keith Wood - 'Ronan O'Gara makes kicking look sexy'.
What referrees really should say: 'Crouch, touch, put the kettle on for a cup of tea, engage.'
Team that consistently has the most internal dramas: Wales, always Wales.
Fading star: Chabal.
Skill quality of the rugby played: 7/10.
Entertainment quality of the rugby played (bar Scotland V Wales): 9/10.
Best performance of the tournament: Ireland in 'that' test.
Teams on this showing that would deserve to make it to a RWC semi or final: possibly Ireland.
Teams that probably will make it to a semi/final even though at this moment in time I don't think they have a hope in hell, but stranger things happen during a knock-out comp: France or England.
IRB rankings after the 2011 Six Nations: 1. NZ, 2. Australia, 3. South Africa, 4. Ireland (up 2 places), 5. England (down 1 place), 6. France (down 1 place), 7. Wales, 8. Argentina, 9. Scotland, 10. Fiji, 11. Samoa, 12. Italy
Six Nations XV:
15. Adrea Masi (Italy)/Chris Patterson (Scotland), 14. Chris Ashton (England), 13. Brian O'Driscoll (Ireland), 12. Gordon D'Arcy (Ireland), 11. Tommy Bowe (Ireland), 10 Jonny Wilkinson (England), 9. Mortan Parra (France), 8. Sergio Parisse (Italy), 7. Sam Warburton (Wales), 6. Sean O'Brien (Ireland), 5, Paul O'Connell (Ireland), 4. Richie Gray (Scotland), 3. Martin Castrogiovanni (Italy), 2. Dylan Hartley (England), 1. Thomas Domingo (France).
2 comments:
Stupidest comment by a beeb announcer: "They'll need to play rugby to win the game."
They get paid how much to say that sort of crap?
Nice round up, boss. Weren't Ireland fantastic? Think England need to cheer up as they won the 6N for first time since 2003... and that was quite a good for them.
Oh, by the way, Ferdy, I got tickets to the final yesterday. Category A!
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