LONDON – Ireland have claimed their second successive 6 Nations Championship after a ‘super Saturday’ which can only be described as crazy after a record 171 points were scored in the final round.
More often than not, the final day of the 6 Nations is normally rather anti-climactic however, not this year as approaching the first match of the final day, four teams could end the Saturday cradling the 6 Nations Championship trophy.
Heading into their final match of the tournament but the first match of the day, Wales trailed England on the 6 Nations table by a points differential -25 and trailed Ireland by -21 points. It’s fair to say that the first half, in comparison with the rest of the rugby that would be played out that day (we were certainly not to know this), was dour and Italy looked like they would claim another scalp in this year’s competition after trailling just 14-13 at halftime with Giovanbattistia Venditti and Jamie Roberts exchanging tries.
Nothing that happened in the first half could have prepared us for the second half with Wales turning on the afterburners and running in 47 points (5 tries) to blow the Italians away 61-20 in the end with George North scoring a treble. With the points job done in Rome, all focus turned to Edinburgh to see how Ireland fared against Scotland who would need to overturn a 20 points differential after Wales shot to the top of the 6 Nations table.
Scotland proved to be no match for the Irish whose dogged determination to retain the 6 Nations shone through with a try through veteran Paul O’Connell in what may have been his last ever 6 Nations match.
30 points was the final gap between the two teams with tries from O’Connell, a double to Sean O’Brien and Jared Payne. This left England a massive job to do at Twickenham by having to overcome the French by 26 points or more to win the championship – a margin that the French hadn’t lost by since before World War I.
What unfolded at Twickenham was nothing short of remarkable after coming within six points of 6 Nations glory in a match that finished 55-35. Every single person of the 82,319 str0ng crowd would have left Twickenham disappointed however thoroughly entertained as the match was as thrilling as the score suggests. It was end to end stuff as both teams threw the ball wide, ran from inside their own quarter and found their running and flamboyant ways.
Unfortunately, for all of England’s endeavour to pile the points on in order to chase down Ireland, it was fruitless as they fell as the final whistle, metres short of what would have been a championship winning try.