Three's a crowd but makes for an interesting tournament.

The 6N started off with a hiss and a roar. Bening conditions and all sides wishing to play an open game and looking to offload in the tackle and keep it alive. It's been hard work to be enthused since that encouraging weekend. France played their best against England and England were made to look off their game a little but finished much the stronger and took a well deserved win. Scotland have retreated into their shells and gone for living off scraps instead of serving up tasty morsels and Ireland started well and the less said about the best the rest the better. Even more so for Italy. Wales have showed great heart to come back from so many losses to be within a mathematical chance of winning the tournament and England have been easily the most consistent but not put under any real sustained pressure.

It was much like this for the inaugural 4N tournament though much like the southern hemisphere the other way round. The tournament got off to a strange start with SA and NZ winning comfortably yet flattering to deceive. Attritional defence became a standard for much of the tournament and only broke out into attacking rugby in the closing stages of the tournament.

The problem is the front runners were not put under any real pressure. Injuries ravaged Australia and SA so that was unsurprising and Argentina battled bravely but found the going tough in the closing parts of the tournament. Injuries have played a big part in this tournament as well and we have failed to get a group of front runners. We just tend to have a dominating team and a team there or thereabouts. I'm sure there is not much complaining from England fans yet deep down I wonder if there was the same feeling among many NZ fans last year that they wish their team had been tested more. A good indicator of where your side is at is seeing how they deal under pressure. That to me was the positive to take out of the England test against NZ. We were found wanting and sometimes that's a good thing because it makes you identify where you went wrong and you are forced to find ways to improve. The closest England has been tested so far in this tournament is against Ireland and France. They were exposed to varying degrees but came out with a win. But how much have we learned about this England side from this tournament? We know they're a good all-round side who have talented players who can prove the difference in key areas. They go into this last game with Grand Slam aspirations much like NZ did in Soweto. Will we see them tested like SA did against NZ in those opening exchanges? I certainly hope so because if the win comes too easily, the England team will rightly celebrate a Grand Slam achievement. They will gain a lot of confidence and feel that they are building nicely for 2015. All true and yet eventually they will come up against a side who puts them to the sword and asks questions of them. How you react to those situations often depends on the experiences on which you can draw.

For me the tournaments that really stand out are the ones that were hard fought. The more the merrier. Winning all your games is great but being made to earn your wins and coming back from a loss to win are more exciting. Wales can still win this tournament and yet the focus is on the unbeaten English side. How would people feel about the tournament though if we were going into the final weekend and three teams had a chance of winning the tournament? We have seen that the teams are evenly matched but why do we only tend to see one standout team in these tournaments and the rest playing catch up? When was the last 6N tournament you can remember when three teams had a chance of taking overall honours?I well remember the last 5 nations when Scotland beat France away and wales beat England to give Scotland the overall title. There have been close 6ns but too often there is a clear winner and individual battles for bragging rights tend to lose sight of that. Is this due to the draw? Why are there so many different 6n winners where often sides win convincingly? You'd think certain sides would dominate for longer.