Discuss the following...

The Six Nations is an anachronistic competition featuring under-prepared, poorly coached test sides playing average rugby in front of large crowds of fans who only follow the sport for two months a year.

Thats my broadside, my abstract if you will. What do you make of that? As a dyed in the wool rugby fan I'm finding it increasingly hard to get excited by this the way I get excited about the World Cup, or Lions Tours, or the Summer tours or Autumn Internationals- or even the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup or Pro12.

For me, the magic is gone. I feel like in an era when only three of the competing nations are in the Top 8 of the IRB World Rankings and teams get such a limited amount of time together to bond and prepare the appeal is slowly ebbing away. I find myself increasingly pondering what should replace the tournament in the calendar. Sentiment can't sustain it for me if it isn't backed up by quality rugby.

I'm interested to hear what other people think.

I can't argue with your opening statement. All is true, the quality of rugby will be lower than the H cup certainly.

But I don't see why it should be replaced just because the top 3 teams dont enter due to geography? The football euro competition still works without Brazil?

I do think there should be a play off between the 6 nations and the '6 nations B', but I don't see how say a copy of football european championships would work, unless the domestic season was restructured.

As a poster on Leinsterfans has in his sig....

Lions me hole, I have no interest in watching Irishmen getting injured playing for England in Welsh shirts....it has a ring of the Somme to it.

I have been going to 5 & 6N games ond and off since yer Da was in primary school, and I would have it ahead of all of the above bar the WC.

HC is a different buzz. Provincial sides are teams that you follow on a week to week basis and are more involved with.

I think of Leinster and Ireland like 2 of my kids. I never favour one over the other. I don't have to choose as they will never play each other.

So for me in intl rugby

WC > 6N > Lions > any other tours or friendlies.

Some years the 6N is good, some years it is not so good. Not great atm, but we live in hope, and I'm sure it will come back around..... It always does.

Bizarre. It is easily the greatest tournament in world rugby. Nothing comes close. Sometimes as in any big tournament games can appear to be arm wrestles but only because the stakes are so high.

Still is and will always be the greatest rugby tournament in the world.

Here's another one.

It is always very hard to predict who will win it. Most people will say England or France, but will they?

That's one of the great things in the 6N. Results do not always go to plan.

Team A beats Team B who beat Team C who then beat Team A.

Happens in Rugby anyway. But much more so in the 6N

I think perhaps what you are experiencing is a point in your personal development Notch.

You frown on the comp because it is too mainstream for your intensifying rugby tastes (you are a Jazz fan after all )

You cringe when the "large crowds of fans who only follow the sport for two months a year" offer an opinion that is stupid. etc etc.

You will eventually come out the other side and accept such people as the "colour that makes the tournament such a unique event"

To me the world cup and similar events seem forced and unatural, mere copies of what are actually pretty dull spectacles for the most part in other sports.

I have no idea what in anachoristic about a popular competition that makes money and draws big crowds. Indeed if anything its the world cup, which nealry bankrupts its hosts, is rarely won by the best side playing their best rugby, and which has many fixtures of little appeal to broadcasters sponsors and the viewer, which has no place in modern commercial rugby.

I like the 6 nations, I would like to see home and away matches as that makes the competition much fairer.

As far as Heineken being higher quality is wholly untrue. There are more matches, so of course chances are you will see a few more exciting matches, but there are as many dire matches as well.

I think the loyalty of some posters to their HC cup teams are blurring their objectivity.

Interesting that the traditionalists still hold sway. I can't be the only one whose felt like scouring out their eyes at the dour spectacle of yet another low-scoring Calcutta Cup match at a frozen Murrayfield or rolled their eyes at yet another predictable Welsh/Irish implosion and under-performance.

I hear some of you defending the competition, but not giving me actual reasons to give a stuff. After all, I was reared on this tournament. Before going to watch provincial rugby was even a thing my family watched the Six Nations religiously. I think I've been to at least one Six Nations game in the flesh every year since about 2006 and obviously I watch all of it on TV, as I do pretty much all rugby. It has tradition in its favour- but why should tradition alone sustain it if it's falling behind in terms of atmosphere, entertainment, enterprise and quality?

Most of the games don't involve my team so I largely look upon it as a neutral; and my team is a dour, dispiriting mess that can't summon a tenth of the passion reserved for provincial rugby in Ireland anyway. And what I see are sides with little cohesion or ambition grinding out results in dull matches. Obviously the Tri-Nations shows it up, but now I've seen test rugby involving the likes of Argentina, Tonga and Samoa in the autumn that has left me more invigorated than the same old suspects. The introduction of bonus points has become more than necessary to give this old show a shot in the arm but even now the traditionalists resist.

And I make the point about fans, Jen, to illustrate one point; when you go to a test match in Ireland or Scotland (I can't speak for the other 4 countries yet sadly) the atmosphere is so utterly dead compared to the atmosphere in a Heineken Cup match of any importance. A lot is made of the atmosphere in selling the tournament at games, but go to a Heineken Cup Final and see how it's blown out of the water. Obviously the likes of England vs Wales and Ireland vs England stir the passions (everyone versus England, basically) but I've been to livelier funerals than watching Ireland vs Italy at the "AVIVA".

Jenifer McLadyboy wrote:Here's another one.

It is always very hard to predict who will win it. Most people will say England or France, but will they?

That's one of the great things in the 6N. Results do not always go to plan.

It sure beats the Tri / Quad nations there, where the only guessing is whether New Zealand will be unbeaten, or merely win the tournament.

Here's an idea;

The tournament is divided into two pools of three based on last years ranking. 1st, 4th and 5th is Pool A. 2nd, 3rd and 6th is Pool B.

The teams play each other home and away in their pools and then there are playoffs. The Final between the pool winners, the 3rd/4th playoff and the 5th/6th playoff.

From that point on, teams would rotate through the pools in a fixed order each year.

Alex_Germany wrote:

Jenifer McLadyboy wrote:Here's another one.

It is always very hard to predict who will win it. Most people will say England or France, but will they?

That's one of the great things in the 6N. Results do not always go to plan.

It sure beats the Tri / Quad nations there, where the only guessing is whether New Zealand will be unbeaten, or merely win the tournament.

there is of course the odd one that they don't win.

Notch...dont watch then. Just watch the ones you get excited by. Personally, being welsh its hard to get excited about the heineken cup. I have watched lots but dont find the rugby particularly exhilirating this year.

Techinically Notch....by your logic you only seem to get excited for a total of 5 months of rugby. Some of that rugby only occurs every four years.

Reasons to give a stuff:

1) Yes, there are attritional, low-scoring games. Play in Europe in the dead of winter and that's an inevitable result from time to time, but sometimes it's the result of one coach out-thinking another, as when McGeechan's Scotland scuppered England's Grand Slam prospects in 2000. Low scoring, forward dominated games can be enthralling.

2) The results are unpredictable and often in doubt until the dying seconds. England's win in Paris was a huge upset. Three of Wales's wins last year were decided in the last couple of minutes. Compare that to the HEC final, which was all but over by half time.

3) By the same token, because so many games are so close, the ones that aren't (except against Italy) are more surprising and enjoyable. England's demolition of Ireland's scrum last year was not something you often see in International rugby.

4) The atmosphere for the games I attended live, particularly in Twickenham for England v Wales, and in Stade de France for France v England, was among the best I've ever experienced.

5) If you can't get excited by the passion aroused by ancient rivalries and the way teams rise to the challenge of specific foes, check that you still have a pulse.

The 6N is what it is because of when it's played. A global season and a later slot in the year would give us more running rugby, fewer dropped passes and more tries, but for me that's only part of the game. More than any other competition it captures the full range of what rugby can be about. I'd still watch it if it were played in May, but it would lose something.

Poorfour wrote:Reasons to give a stuff:

1) Yes, there are attritional, low-scoring games. Play in Europe in the dead of winter and that's an inevitable result from time to time, but sometimes it's the result of one coach out-thinking another, as when McGeechan's Scotland scuppered England's Grand Slam prospects in 2000. Low scoring, forward dominated games can be enthralling.

2) The results are unpredictable and often in doubt until the dying seconds. England's win in Paris was a huge upset. Three of Wales's wins last year were decided in the last couple of minutes. Compare that to the HEC final, which was all but over by half time.

3) By the same token, because so many games are so close, the ones that aren't (except against Italy) are more surprising and enjoyable. England's demolition of Ireland's scrum last year was not something you often see in International rugby.

4) The atmosphere for the games I attended live, particularly in Twickenham for England v Wales, and in Stade de France for France v England, was among the best I've ever experienced.

5) If you can't get excited by the passion aroused by ancient rivalries and the way teams rise to the challenge of specific foes, check that you still have a pulse.

The 6N is what it is because of when it's played. A global season and a later slot in the year would give us more running rugby, fewer dropped passes and more tries, but for me that's only part of the game. More than any other competition it captures the full range of what rugby can be about. I'd still watch it if it were played in May, but it would lose something.

Poorfour...I absolutely love this little salvo. My point exactly.

Permian1988 wrote:Techinically Notch....by your logic you only seem to get excited for a total of 5 months of rugby. Some of that rugby only occurs every four years.

Nah, thats not true. Ravenhill on a Pro12 night knocks an Ireland test match into a cocked hat in terms of atmosphere if not quality. The bread and butter rugby has never tasted better in Belfast and the disruption to the week to week isn't particularly welcome.

Indeed, the weekend after next I'm going to two games; Ulster vs Ospreys and Ireland vs England. I wouldn't say I'm more excited by the test match and thats the problem for me. When I'm just as excited to watch a mid-season league game between two sides without their internationals as I am to go to an international test match against our biggest rivals, is there any wonder I feel something is wrong?

I totally agree with Poorfour about attritional games being entertaining. If they are good games. There's a difference between attritional and error strewn. Sometimes the Six Nations walks that line so finely it falls off. Passion is great, can fault the 6N for passion, but as a neutral I'm looking for quality. I'm looking to see good rugby, whether its controlled forward dominance based around territory, pressure and a metronomic kicker or flamboyant flair. A team doesn't need to have tries to be a classic- it does need to have players who looks like they've met at least once!

Notch wrote:

Permian1988 wrote:Techinically Notch....by your logic you only seem to get excited for a total of 5 months of rugby. Some of that rugby only occurs every four years.

Nah, thats not true. Ravenhill on a Pro12 night knocks an Ireland test match into a cocked hat in terms of atmosphere if not quality. The bread and butter rugby has never tasted better in Belfast and the disruption to the week to week isn't particularly welcome.

Indeed, the weekend after next I'm going to two games; Ulster vs Ospreys and Ireland vs England. I wouldn't say I'm more excited by the test match and thats the problem for me. When I'm just as excited to watch a mid-season league game between two sides without their internationals as I am to go to an international test match against our biggest rivals, is there any wonder I feel something is wrong?

Being the same age notch, I suspect that our difference is the cultural aspect. In Ireland i feel that the provincial rugby is king whereas in Wales the international game reigns supreme. I also suspect that the respective success of our national/provincial/regional teams have something to do with it. But for me although i am a huge ospreys fan and love watching them through gritted teeth with my heart thumping. Nothing can quite replace the anticipation, the fierce national rivalries forged by historic battles and blood sweat and tears of international rugby.

Just my opinion bud.

I really feel the Six Nations should be in the summer, after the tours, with our season not starting until the Winter- kicking off with the Autumn Internationals in October whilst all domestic competition takes place between November and May.

This way our international season runs as a block, because I seriously feel the Six Nations is compromised by a lack of preparation time.

Of course that won't happen because the club season is whats driving things. I feel like this will lead to a slow atrophy in the quality of Northern Hemisphere rugby.

Permian1988 wrote:

Notch wrote:

Permian1988 wrote:Techinically Notch....by your logic you only seem to get excited for a total of 5 months of rugby. Some of that rugby only occurs every four years.

Nah, thats not true. Ravenhill on a Pro12 night knocks an Ireland test match into a cocked hat in terms of atmosphere if not quality. The bread and butter rugby has never tasted better in Belfast and the disruption to the week to week isn't particularly welcome.

Indeed, the weekend after next I'm going to two games; Ulster vs Ospreys and Ireland vs England. I wouldn't say I'm more excited by the test match and thats the problem for me. When I'm just as excited to watch a mid-season league game between two sides without their internationals as I am to go to an international test match against our biggest rivals, is there any wonder I feel something is wrong?

Being the same age notch, I suspect that our difference is the cultural aspect. In Ireland i feel that the provincial rugby is king whereas in Wales the international game reigns supreme. I also suspect that the respective success of our national/provincial/regional teams have something to do with it. But for me although i am a huge ospreys fan and love watching them through gritted teeth with my heart thumping. Nothing can quite replace the anticipation, the fierce national rivalries forged by historic battles and blood sweat and tears of international rugby.

Just my opinion bud.

Yep, pretty much feel the exact opposite to that. It's when watching the Irish national team these days you get the feeling of it being a compromise side no-one really fully supports with no real identity of its own or passion behind it. I keep going to games, but its frustrating and you feel like the main point of it is for the IRFU to put their hand in your pocket. Its a very synthetic experience. Our fans make more noise arguing about players on forums than watching the game in the stadium. And the team isn't much better in terms of tribalism, I gather.

But thats not my whole point, though it may colour my thinking. If you look back to the World Cup, pretty much all the Six Nations sides played better rugby and measured up better to the Southern Hemisphere than we manage in the Autumn tests or our own tournament. There's an obvious quality issue which is largely down to a lack of time with the players, a lack of preparation time.

Notch, would you disagree if I suggested that the high regard in which you hold the Heino and the Pro 12 is linked directly to Ulster's current success in those competitions? And that if the Irish provinces hadn't been challenging for and winning those tournaments for the last half-a-decade or more, but the national side had been winning the Six Nations trophy instead, you'd be less disappointed that it was interrupting Ulster's season?

I'm finding it increasingly hard to get excited by this the way I get excited about the World Cup, or Lions Tours, or the Summer tours or Autumn Internationals- or even the knockout stages of the Heineken Cup or Pro12.

That's because you are a telly addict. Get to the games, if you can go to away games. I appreciate you have just started your career, but this is about mass participation. Huge travelling support. Full stadiums. And yes, drinking, socialising, singing and sex. You get those in the other things you listed, but nowhere near on the same scale.

As to the rugby, I think you would find that a few rule changes requiring forwards to get more involved in the tight and creating space would sort rugby at any level out.

Notch, you have to remember that us Irish have been pretty bummed about our team for a while now. They're not doing very well so it's completely natural not to be as excited. Whereas Ulster have been relentlessly improving for years. It's exhilerating to watch your team clearly on the right path, delivering one milestone after another.

I remember being much more excited about the 6 Nations in the 00's as Ireland gave us so much more to be excited about. I'm not that excited at all at the moment, because we've been treading water and delivering one disappointment after another for years and there's no sign that's gonna change. There's not much coming from the team for the crowd to draw on to lift the atmosphere.

I totally agree about moving the 6 Nations to the summer. It would obviously be much better.

And HC and WC finals especially tend to be dire matches. The format is unique. Don't meddle with it.

We all have to be carefull not to become the snobs of the game, we the hardcore who live and breathe are not entitled to any more of an opinion than a 6N regular however hard it may be to admit...

There are always the old comments, my fav being...

'Are you going to the game? no? But I thought you liked rugby?'

And my other favourite and most recent...

'Do you think Gav will make the team this year?' WTF?!?!?!?!

But essentially these are the WRU's key demographic, those big juicy cash cows they can squeeze every time the MS opens it's doors, and as such they are arguably more important than some of us who don't go regularly!

Although I probably agree with a lot of negative views of the international game right now, we have to embrace the 6N and enjoy it for what it is.

GLAS

I disagree, all the governing bodies need to do is take my advice on skill aqcuisition and junior development to allow for a higher quality rugby spectacle. More regulations allow for more ref interperetations, whereas my expertice would allow for a far greater execution rate, and lower error count!

Second only to the Lions for me, but that's because I'm old. It's nice to say "we're world champions" at a sport, I'm sure, but you can't create instant history. Bill is just over 25 years old, while Lions Tours and the 4, 5 and 6 Nations have been going for aeons.

Rather like the Americans in other spheres, the Tri-Nations crew (as was) are far better than we poor Northern Hemisphere saps at rugby, of course, but they still desperately want the one thing that they can't have, which is a bit of history. Having let Argentina into their bonanza of rugby cum basketball, the Tri-Nations are now daringly polyglot and may also technically be better than the 6 Nations, but their tournament is never more gripping. Never in a hundred years, which by the way, chaps, is quite a long time in rugby terms.

Who said more regulations? I want less! Get rid of the back foot law. Either stop all handling on the floor or freely allow it.

Feckless Rogue wrote:Notch, you have to remember that us Irish have been pretty bummed about our team for a while now. They're not doing very well so it's completely natural not to be as excited. Whereas Ulster have been relentlessly improving for years. It's exhilerating to watch your team clearly on the right path, delivering one milestone after another..

True that. But Ulster is our team. We're just a small part of the Ireland team. Good for scapegoats and the occasional big-name player but there's not the same sense of belonging. In truth, the competition to see which province can get the most players into the team as become more compelling than the team itself.

captain carrantuohil wrote:Second only to the Lions for me, but that's because I'm old. It's nice to say "we're world champions" at a sport, I'm sure, but you can't create instant history. Bill is just over 25 years old

There is a generational aspect there, I mean the first World Cup was the year before I was born. I've never been involved in supporting top-flight rugby that wasn't fully professional. In many ways, with its ridiculous unchanged format, I would see the 6N as the final thing needing modernised. The bonus point thing is divisive, but it needs to come in to reward the more effective attacking sides.

Glas- your point about away games is a good one. I've started going to less internationals to try and get to more away games in the Heineken Cup- but thats about the experience, not the rugby. Not to mention the value! Not every rugby fan has that option in Europe, but if you're lucky enough to follow a side that can make those fixtures its the best rugby trip you can have as a fan.

Glas

I partly agree, but how do you stop ALL handling without more laws???

IMHO just allow the attacking team to ref their side of the ruck themselves (without serious intent to damage) that way players will make a concsious effort NOT to fall the wrong side instead of every guy within 5/6 metres jogging around the back of a ruck willy nilly!!

Notch, in 20 years' time, you'll be banging on about the sacred nature of the Heineken Cup, as some bright spark tries to make it twenty minutes each way while wearing snorkels, masks and flippers, trust me.

It's natural to want to rip everything up when you're young and say it's anachronistic rubbish, but it's not always right.

Put it this way, I'm happy with any competition that allows me to travel to Dublin, London, Edinburgh, Paris or Rome with 1000's of like minded Welsh people. Obviously I can see the HC attraction for Irish provinces!

utter hogswash i can bet you will be excited come game day and crowing like any other victorious fan should your team triumph. a few nerves for you there is it?

Maybe therein lies the problem Notch. It must be hard to like watching Ireland if you only feel a small part of it. Although I'm welsh and a Dragons fan, so only see a few of 'my' club players going to the welsh team, I feel 100% part of it. It's my national side, all of it, regardless of the which teams the players are from.

Success helps too. I see none with the Dragons but some with Wales. That's a big factor in my enjoyment of international rugby.

Glas

Which region can you follow to those places? and how many supporters?

A great day at Twickers was the Blues Glos EDF final, huge following support, great crack on the trains, and at twickers not to mention the result!!!

In Newcastle in our Amlin win we were the only Blues fans there, not much more at Wasps and the less said about the final the better, the only pocket of Blues fans were the opposite side of the stadium to us, all 100 of them!!

Poorfour wrote:Reasons to give a stuff:

1) Yes, there are attritional, low-scoring games. Play in Europe in the dead of winter and that's an inevitable result from time to time, but sometimes it's the result of one coach out-thinking another, as when McGeechan's Scotland scuppered England's Grand Slam prospects in 2000. Low scoring, forward dominated games can be enthralling.

2) The results are unpredictable and often in doubt until the dying seconds. England's win in Paris was a huge upset. Three of Wales's wins last year were decided in the last couple of minutes. Compare that to the HEC final, which was all but over by half time.

3) By the same token, because so many games are so close, the ones that aren't (except against Italy) are more surprising and enjoyable. England's demolition of Ireland's scrum last year was not something you often see in International rugby.

4) The atmosphere for the games I attended live, particularly in Twickenham for England v Wales, and in Stade de France for France v England, was among the best I've ever experienced.

5) If you can't get excited by the passion aroused by ancient rivalries and the way teams rise to the challenge of specific foes, check that you still have a pulse.

The 6N is what it is because of when it's played. A global season and a later slot in the year would give us more running rugby, fewer dropped passes and more tries, but for me that's only part of the game. More than any other competition it captures the full range of what rugby can be about. I'd still watch it if it were played in May, but it would lose something.

+1 good post poorfour.

I would add that the timing is fan focussed. The 6N comes alive once you go to an away match and spend the weekend in a great capital, there must be more away supporters in the 6N than any other international competition and that is the real catch. The rugby is important but it's not the be all and end all of life - just the way it should be. Long weekends with the lads are just about far enough from Christmas and soon enough before summer to justify the expense. On that note home and away would kill the ambiance, because it is only just about affordable going to say Paris once every TWO years!

It is also the only major competition left that doesn't use the anachronistic bonus point system, and is therefore the only competition where every point on the scoreboard counts and that level of intensity has to be applauded.

Well said, Great Aukster. As the great Willie John used to say: "It matters a great deal who's going to win and not at all who has just won."

Well, I like to think that supporters of the various nations still feel that way, even if the professional era has removed some of that charm from the players.

Notch wrote:

captain carrantuohil wrote:Second only to the Lions for me, but that's because I'm old. It's nice to say "we're world champions" at a sport, I'm sure, but you can't create instant history. Bill is just over 25 years old

There is a generational aspect there, I mean the first World Cup was the year before I was born. I've never been involved in supporting top-flight rugby that wasn't fully professional. In many ways, with its ridiculous unchanged format, I would see the 6N as the final thing needing modernised. The bonus point thing is divisive, but it needs to come in to reward the more effective attacking sides.

Glas- your point about away games is a good one. I've started going to less internationals to try and get to more away games in the Heineken Cup- but thats about the experience, not the rugby. Not to mention the value! Not every rugby fan has that option in Europe, but if you're lucky enough to follow a side that can make those fixtures its the best rugby trip you can have as a fan.

Wow! I was (slightly) older than you are at the first WC. So the 6N goes right back to the early 70s for me. Unlike kids today, we would go into town on the bus to get our tickets. walk to the stadium and stand on the terrace, Fergus Slattery, Mike Gibson, all the lads. Jaysus that stuff stays with you. I remember Willie John's last game in LR...... Hold on, I'll be in tears in a minute

Leinster, Ulster and all that were just representative teams taken from the clubs that played 2 or 3 games a year.

In the same way as the Top 14 is so special to the French, more so than the HC. It's because it was watched by their dads and grandads going back 100 years.

The 6N is the oldest comp in the game, you can't just sweep it away like last night's paper. If you do.... You'll be sorry.

Don't move it from Spring. Summer rugby will be better and it may have all sorts of other attractions, but Spring on these islands would be pretty dire without the rugby.

I wouldn't want a home and away format. Firstly, they play too many games as it is. Secondly, home and away creates a bit of a 'cushioned' mentality as seen in the HC and AC - go away and try to pickup something and then concentrate on the home wins. What I like about the 6N is that you have to go away and get a result if you want to do well. No going through the motions. All or nothing. Obviously the main difference between the two is the bonus point. Pick up a point away in the HC and that could make the difference. But you get nothing for losing in the 6N. But that adds to the drama and excitement, in a way. Coming so close but getting nothing I think fires up the team for the next games.

Spring my a*se. This is the middle of bloody winter, or so it feels to me. No, don't move it to the summer. What is this, rugby sodding league? Once in a while, the sun will shine, the grounds will be rock hard and everyone will gambol like spring lambs. At other times, it will be muddy, wet, hideous, and you'll have to grind out your win. That's one of the beauties of the 6 Nations - you've got to be prepared for anything.

I agree captain. Never was I more surprised than the 2005 Wales grand slam match v Ireland when, in in the middle of march, we had sub tropical conditions! I tend to run on the cold side but even I ventured out in just a shirt. Caught the sun too if memory serves.

Last game in Paris is almost invariably played in the kind of gorgeous weather that inspires songs, and the French very often go berserk and score hatfuls. At least they do in my memory.

Glas a du wrote:Don't move it from Spring. Summer rugby will be better and it may have all sorts of other attractions, but Spring on these islands would be pretty dire without the rugby.

Actually- thats a bloody good point. February would be sad.

GloriousEmpire wrote:utter hogswash i can bet you will be excited come game day and crowing like any other victorious fan should your team triumph. a few nerves for you there is it?

No, I WILL get nerves when the game starts and I will be pleased when/if we win but it's not what it used to be for me. Used to be if Ireland had a game it dominated my weekend you know? Not now. There's a certain weariness and disaffection which comes with it. Kind of;

"...well here we go again then"

Notch wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:utter hogswash i can bet you will be excited come game day and crowing like any other victorious fan should your team triumph. a few nerves for you there is it?

No, I WILL get nerves when the game starts and I will be pleased when/if we win but it's not what it used to be for me. Used to be if Ireland had a game it dominated my weekend you know? Not now. There's a certain weariness and disaffection which comes with it. Kind of;

"...well here we go again then"

That's fine.

You'll know you're old when you feel the same way about sex.

Notch wrote:

GloriousEmpire wrote:utter hogswash i can bet you will be excited come game day and crowing like any other victorious fan should your team triumph. a few nerves for you there is it?

No, I WILL get nerves when the game starts and I will be pleased when/if we win but it's not what it used to be for me. Used to be if Ireland had a game it dominated my weekend you know? Not now. There's a certain weariness and disaffection which comes with it. Kind of;

"...well here we go again then"

It's amazing what a different emoticon can do on a discussion board.

"...well here we go again then"

"...well here we go again"

TOURNAMENT RECORD

Played 441
Wales Wins 231
Ireland Wins 185
Draws 25

Games played between Ireland and Wales: 118 18.13%
Games won by Wales: 65 55.08%
Games lost by Wales: 47 39.83%
Games drawn: 6 5.08%

Most wins in a row for Wales over Ireland: 5

Most wins in a row for Ireland over Wales: 5

Average Pts Per Game 13

Heaviest Defeat 3rd of Feb 2002 Ireland 54 - 10 Wales

Hey Notch.

That's part of what makes the tournament so special!

I only really got bored of the 6N during the time of the dreaded ELV's. Otherwise its the tension and excitement which stays with me. I know that on Saturday, given a bit of wind and rain the actual quality of rugby between Eng and Scot could well be awful and much of it forgettable - but the tension... and the collisions will be on an epic scale and I wouldnt miss it for anything