It's that time of year again, when the sporting world turns its eyes to the Guinness Six Nations championship. We're very lucky to have some expert insights, through P+B ambassador, and former Scottish rugby captain, Andy Nicol. A scrum-half, Andy won 23 caps for Scotland, and also took part in two British & Irish Lions tours.
Andy Nicol: February means one thing to me, the Guinness Six Nations! The January Blues are never really that blue for me because you know what is just around the corner. The Six Nations is the best annual rugby tournament in the world…..by some distance.
The Rugby Championship will argue that New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina are better teams, with every one a winner of the Rugby World Cup, other than England in 2003. But it doesn’t come close to the atmosphere and the theatre that the Six Nations is. We do have a slight advantage, with relatively short distances to travel for the fans, which means each stadium has a high number of opposition fans, creating a wonderful, colourful and noisy backdrop to the rugby on the pitch.
The tournament starts this week and I think it might be the closest and most exciting tournament ever. This is mainly due to the quality of all the teams, well five of the teams; with Italy still struggling. Scotland have made huge improvements over the past three years to join Wales, as the reigning Six Nations champions, in pushing the other countries (France, Ireland and England).
Scotland have their best squad ever. It has real quality throughout, with some genuine world-class players in Stuart Hogg, Finn Russell, Hamish Watson and a few others who are not far behind that level. There is more strength-in-depth than I have ever seen and a settled and familiar look to the squad. Sounds great for Scotland doesn’t it? The trouble is, two of the other countries are as strong as I can remember them too. France have got better and better, culminating in them easily beating New Zealand last Autumn. They have the best player in the world in Antoine Dupont, and numerous other brilliant players in every position, and start as slight favourites for me. Ireland are in the same boat having beaten the All Blacks last Autumn, and have an incredibly strong group of players to choose from, all bristling with confidence from success with their provincial sides.
England are always strong, mainly due to the huge player pool they can choose from, but they are in a transition phase and are quite hard to predict. The young players who are very good at club level, and look very promising, have not been exposed to this level of competition and hostile crowds away from Twickenham. They could go either way, especially when playing away from home, but will be very good at Twickenham. The defending champions Wales are missing a huge number of experienced players which must cost them, but no country raises their game in the Six Nations more than Wales. They probably had no right to win last year’s tournament, but to their great credit, they did and they know what needs to be done.
That leaves Italy who have not won a game in the Six Nations since 2015, losing 30 consecutive matches. That is not good, and fuels the debate on whether they should be in the Six Nations by right, or should be relegated to allow real competition in the next tier of countries, such as Georgia and Romania.
It promises to be a brilliant Guinness Six Nations, and I am expecting some real quality matches played in front of full stadia, which is fantastic. Come the 19th March I expect France to be crowned Six Nations Champions but without winning the Grand Slam. My final table order is France, Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales and Italy.
Let the games begin!
