6N Week 3

I've watched all three games this weekend and I've read the online reports and some message boards and, my oh my, don't people (journalists included) talk some bollocks.

Still there are few sights as amusing as a Welshman nursing a sense of grieveance. Bloody English referees. The Wales v France fixture was the pick of the weekend - furious, bloody and controversial. To my mind France were marginally the better side but they were running on fumes for the last quarter so it would have been no great injustice had Wales nicked it.

One Welsh player particularly catches the eye - for deeply contrasting reasons. I really rate Dan Biggar as a player and could never fathom Warren Gatland's penchant for dropping him. However, competence notwithstanding, Biggar really needs to be told to behave himself. He spends so much time in a mental stew that you are reminded of nothing so much as a McEnroe style rage for perfection. Silly boy. For his petulance we revive the Ronan O'Gara Gobshite Award and Biggar wins it hands down despite the spoilt antics of both Sexton and Farrell. Bloody backs.

Italy v Scotland was, I regret, second division stuff and you do fear for Itlay's unchallenged continuation in the tournament. On which score I fervently hope that the talk of expanding the tournament to include South Africa is utterly fanciful. It ain't broke (even allowing for the Italy question) so don't fix it.

Whereat England? The noise from the commentariat has it that England duffed Ireland up - by the underwhelming margin of twelve points. This hubristic English conclusion ignores the fact that England again selected no proper number eight and scored two of their three tries from comedic Irish defending. England were markedly better than Ireland but there reamain annoying weaknesses and there is also the painful problem of Eddie Jones who is deliberately behaving even more like a tit than before. Tiresome. And can somebody give me a reason why Jones took off his best player (Courtney Lawes) after an hour? Please don't give me that brain-dead guff about about bringing on 'finishers'.

One final complaint. The ITV coverage is now firmly established as better than that of the poor old BBC but hang your head in shame Martin Bayfield for the tone and content of your post-match interview of Sexton. There are good reasons why people hate the English.