Flair in Welsh blood, or just bankruptcy of response?

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-union/news-comment/james-lawton-on-the-six-nations-maybe-flair-is-in-the-welsh-blood-while-england-can-only-pack-the-odd-punch-8539825.html

The title was won primarily on defence, backed up by the scrum and the breakdown. Wales were clearly the best team but sorry this was not a victory secured by flair.

Agreed. Even the tries we did score weren't flairy. I often find the independents rugby reporting to be lacking.

James Lawton is a general sports writer not a specific rugby journalist.

Yep, they should know better than to get a non-rugby man to write their rugby articles. Wales have done some great stuff in recent years, but the last real flair win was 2005, when the motto seemed to be if the forwards can get parity...

Lawton is awful on rugby, especially English rugby. I saw the word 'flair' in the caption and thought there is no point in reading this.

I'm not so sure.... there was plenty of flair in Chris Ashton's spectacular tackle attempts on Cuthbert.....

There was an awful lot of flair in our TWO tries.

How much flair was in the tries England scored against Ireland, Italy and Scotland?

The only real flair on show in the 6Ns came from Fofanna, Piccamoles, Parisse & some sublime handling by BOD against Wales.

Wales did the job with pace, stamina and the brain needed to use it for the right purpose - to confuse and breakdown allegedly fortress defences (and perhaps refs according to the latest complaints coming from England camp ).

They almost did it to Ireland in the end. They dropped France into the gutter with it...and they destroyed England with it.

It's a bit desperate to suggest that Wales are somehow genetically superior in the flair department as the Independent article seems to do. Different countries did historically have different rugby cultures (Wales tended to have to rely on flair and guile because we didn't produce as many giants as some other countries), but that's largely gone in the pro era. England have flair players, they just made (perhaps over-)conservative selections in this 6N. I was hoping Twelvetrees wouldn't play against us, not to mention Foden - two players with plenty of flair.

Most successful teams are built on the pack first.

Whilst the wales side of the 70s had attacking backs, the foundations for that team were a real tough, hard set of forwards.

In the pro era success has generally been built an a good pack, strong defence with attacking flair being a nice to have.

BlueNote wrote:It's a bit desperate to suggest that Wales are somehow genetically superior in the flair department as the Independent article seems to do. Different countries did historically have different rugby cultures (Wales tended to have to rely on flair and guile because we didn't produce as many giants as some other countries), but that's largely gone in the pro era. England have flair players, they just made (perhaps over-)conservative selections in this 6N. I was hoping Twelvetrees wouldn't play against us, not to mention Foden - two players with plenty of flair.

I think it's interesting that England wouldn't pick Twelvetrees to start. Also how many caps would James S-D have had if he'd been Welsh? my guess is many. Austin Healey would have been a starter as well.

two definitions of 'flair' are' natural ability' and 'with elegance.'

plenty of the first one i'd say in the welsh team, i'm not bothered about the elegance................

"i'm not bothered about the elegance"
Does Richie Hibbard's hair count?

I agree about JSD, McKay.

The only welsh flairs in this 6 nations were on the welsh fans from the Rhondda and Ammanford

*flares