STAR RUGBY PREVIEW Sat: England v Ireland & Wales v Scotland

The third week of the Six Nations is crunch time, writes WILLIAM KEDJANYI.

England will be bidding to bounce back from another Calcutta Cup defeat against an Ireland side that’s undergone a few changes, before a jubilant Scotland will be hoping to show that same form again against Wales, who are in for a long championship based on the first two gameweeks.

Italy have outperformed expectations in the first two gameweeks and had Ireland sweating for large parts of last week’s encounter, but they face the toughest test in European rugby right now – a trip to the Stade de France to test the progress they’ve made so far.

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🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England v Ireland 🇮🇪  (2.10pm, Twickenham)

A crucial game for both sides here. England will be desperate to bounce back from a comprehensive defeat at Scotland last week, whilst this has the feeling of a crucial game for many of Ireland’s players and also Andy Farrell, who will need an much more competitive showing than the one against France in the tournament opener.

England were overwhelmed by the pace and power of the Scots at Murrayfield, never recovering from going 17-0 down, with Henry Arundell’s two yellow cards putting them into a position they could never recover from, despite a positive start to the second half.

The most disappointing aspect of the defeat for Steve Borthwick and his coaching team will have been execution. England managed 12 entries into the Scottish 22 and came away with points just twice, averaging 1.4 points per entry. The Scots meanwhile averaged 3.4 from their 9 entries.

Much of the damage was done when England were a man down – they played 30 of the first 50 minutes with 14 men, leading to their edge defence being taken out time and again by the rampant hosts – although they were not at the level we’ve seen from them over the last 12 months, lacked a plan B when things aren’t working and didn’t have the same emotional intensity as their hosts.

It’s no surprise that Steve Borthwick has made a couple of changes, with Henry Pollock (starting at 8) and Tom Curry in the forward pack from the off, whilst Ollie Lawrence also starts at 13 to give some more impact after Fraser Dingwall and Tommy Freeman were outplayed by their Scottish counterparts.

One area that did work well for England was the set piece – they had the ascendancy in the scrum – and they will hope to use that as a key weapon against Ireland back on home soil.

After a chastening defeat to France in the tournament opener, Ireland were under pressure before their home encounter against Italy and whilst they responded with a win, the hosts were left with plenty of questions.

Ireland head coach Andy Farrell said the result “showed that we’re able to back ourselves”, although some will be discouraged by the fact that they were down at half time despite Louis Lynagh picking up a yellow card for a deliberate knock-on, whilst there was a point where Italy were the dominant side for a period.

The Azzuri were also able to cause a lot of problems for Ireland at the scrum, something that will worry them given that England’s success against Scotland last week in that area was the one bright spot.

Farrell will be pleased with the contribution of the non Leinster contingent in turning the game around, as Stuart McCloskey helped to create two of Ireland’s three tries, Cormac Izuchukwu was a key part of a big defensive effort, and Robert Baloucoune took a superb try and ended up being the match winning score, whilst Jack Crowley’s second half cameo instantly sharpened up the Irish attack.

Crowley retains his place in a much changed Irish XV, as Sam Prendergast is out of the 23, Jamison Gibson-Park, Tadhg Beirne, Tadhg Furlong and Josh van der Flier are all recalled, as Farrell has opted for a five-three split on the bench, England going with 6-2.

Ireland should have more ballast in the carry and also the set-piece with those faced returning to the pack whilst having Ronan Kellher and Jack Conan on the bench will be crucial for the later stages, although the decision to exclude Corman Izuchukwu and replacement Edwin Edogbu from proceedings was harsh and there’s no replacement lock, a gamble for a game of this nature.

England are asked to give mostly a double figure start on the handicap with starsports.bet, a marker which would be fair based on the week one performances for all that England need to bounce back here.

On paper the visitors should have more muscle in the pack here whilst Jack Crowley ought to help their attacking play, but they were vastly second best against the French in Paris and Italy were unlucky not to come away from Dublin with a result. All three games last week were played in dry conditions – remarkable considering Europe’s terrible weather – but tricky conditions are set to take hold at Twickenham which might just blunt England’s backs a tad. They will be more than happy for an arm wrestle, and the value here might be for an English win by 1-10 points if this is a low scoring encounter.

Teams:

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 England: 15 Freddie Steward, 14 Tommy Freeman, 13 Ollie Lawrence, 12 Fraser Dingwall, 11 Henry Arundell, 10 George Ford, 9 Alex Mitchell; 1 Ellis Genge, 2 Luke Cowan-Dickie, 3 Joe Heyes, 4 Maro Itoje (c), 5 Ollie Chessum, 6 Tom Curry, 7 Ben Earl, 8 Henry Pollock.

Replacements: 16 Jamie George, 17 Bevan Rodd, 18 Trevor Davison, 19 Alex Coles, 20 Guy Pepper, 21 Sam Underhill, 22 Jack van Poortvliet, 23 Marcus Smith.

🇮🇪 Ireland: 15 Jamie Osborne, 14 Robert Baloucoune, 13 Garry Ringrose, 12 Stuart McCloskey, 11 James Lowe, 10 Jack Crowley, 9 Jamison Gibson-Park; 1 Jeremy Loughman, 2 Dan Sheehan, 3 Tadhg Furlong; 4 Joe McCarthy, 5 James Ryan; 6 Tadhg Beirne, 7 Josh van der Flier, 8 Caelan Doris.

Replacements: 16 Ronan Kelleher, 17 Tom O’Toole, 18 Finlay Bealham, 19 Nick Timoney, 20 Jack Conan, 21 Craig Casey, 22 Ciaran Frawley, 23 Tommy O’Brien.

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  🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales v Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿   (4.40pm, Principality Stadium)

For Wales the end of their current troubles doesn’t look in sight, a great shame for a proud rugby nation, and another worry was the crowd of 57,744, lower than the previous smallest crowd of 58,349, against Italy in 2000, for a Six Nations fixture at the Principality Stadium, where the French outsung demoralized home supporters.

The state of affairs is summed up by the fact that Scotland are just 1/14 to win
with starsports.bet and it’s hard to argue with those odds – for all he’s got a task nobody would want to deal with, Steve Tandy has seen Wales concede 32 tries and 302 points in his six games there.

There are four changes to the starting XV from last week’s defeat to France, with winger Gabriel Hamer-Webb set to make his Test debut whilst Sam Costelow, Ben Carter and Taine Plumtree come into the starting team. Freddie Thomas, James Botham and Blair Murray arrive to freshen up the bench in a third consecutive gameweek.

Hamer-Webb is deserving of his call-up which has been a long time coming, whilst Costelow’s kicking game should match up well with the Scots (along with his ability to play close to the line, should Wales get the chance), but it’s hard to see them having the transformative effect needed to serious challenge the Scots.

Scotland slipped (almost literally) to defeat against Italy in a monsoon two weeks ago but with clear weather and home advantage they were transformed against England, running out deserved winners, albeit with a man advantage for 30 minutes.

Scotland gained more metres in the Test, made twice the line breaks of England (10 vs five) and beat 25 defenders compared to England’s 19, whilst their tackle completion rate was also better than England at 90% versus 83% to boot.

Finn Russell, Ben White, Kyle Steyn, and the centre combination of ‘Huwipolotu’ were all outstanding, thriving in better conditions, whilst Jamie Ritchie, Rory Darge and Jack Dempsey more than matched upto the English pack.

Unfortunately for Gregor Townsend, Jamie Dobie, Dempsey and Jamie Ritchie are injured, although it says something about the depth Scotland do have with Blair Kinghorn and Duhan van der Merwe set to make their first appearances in this year’s Championship whilst Matt Fagerson was excellent against England off the bench.

Scotland won the mental battle against England last week but will need to overcome something different this time – following up a Calcutta Cup win. The Scots have now beaten England nine times in the Six Nations, with the first victory in 2000. Following six of the other eight triumphs, Scotland have gone on to lose their next match.

That stat needs to be taken in context however – Scotland would not have faced a team as weak as Wales are right now, nor been so strongly favored – and crucially they will enjoy the benefits of a closed roof, which should allow their backs to showcase their full talents just like the French did.

Wales may not be quite as naïve with their kicking game as they were against France but they’ve been second best in every aspect of their two games so far and there’s no reason Scotland shouldn’t be able to do the same again here.

Wales have lost their two games by 41 and 42 points respectively and Scotland have been given a reasonable handicap at less than half that, whilst the half time handicap of 10 points is of interest – England were 29-0 up at the break and France 27-6 up at half time.

Teams

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Wales: 15 Louis Rees Zammit, 14 Gabriel Hamer Webb, 13 Eddie James, 12 Joe Hawkins, 11 Josh Adams, 10 Sam Costelow, 9 Tomos Williams, 8 Aaron Wainwright, 7 Alex Mann, 6 Taine Plumtree, 5 Ben Carter, 4 Dafydd Jenkins, 3 Tomas Francis, 2 Dewi Lake (c), 1 Rhys Carre

Replacements: 16 Ryan Elias, 17 Nicky Smith, 18 Archie Griffin, 19 Freddie Thomas, 20 James Botham, 21 Kieran Hardy, 22 Jarrod Evans, 23 Blair Murray

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland: 15 Blair Kinghorn, 14 Kyle Steyn, 13 Huw Jones, 12 Sione Tuipulotu (c), 11 Duhan van der Merwe, 10 Finn Russell, 9 Ben White, 8 Matt Fagerson, 7 Rory Darge, 6 Gregor Brown, 5 Scott Cummings, 4 Max Williamson, 3 Zander Fagerson, 2 Dave Cherry, 1 Nathan McBeth

Replacements: 16 George Turner, 17 Pierre Schoeman, 18 Elliot Millar Mills, 19 Grant Gilchrist, 20 Josh Bayliss, 21 George Horne, 22 Tom Jordan, 23 Darcy Graham

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