I have a feeling Wales will be a let down.

Their WC performance is very overhyped. They were at the tournament with nothing to lose and little expectation.

Now more is expected and we all know how wales deals with expectation.

On a previous post I mentioned that this Wales teams potential will only come to fruition in another year or two after which you'd expect them to challenge for the 6 nations' first place regularly.

Awww Gowwd

I don't know what to say only as im irish i hope your right but being irish im also infected with a steak of cynicism emanating form my very gene pool!

On another topic. I don't believe we (Ireland) will be looking for "revenge" It seems the media have clung on to this idea and in a sort of twilight zone meets Sesame Street... 'the word of the day is.... R:E:V:E:N:G:E" they are harping on and on about it.

In fact i think Ireland will be no less professional then any other team and are looking to right the mistakes they made in the WC game. They believe they could have won it, and they believe they need to fix the errors they made in order to bounce back form that loss. Revenge is a highly unprofessional motive. Thats my thoughts on it anyway.

5 quid says revenge is mentioned at least 5 times in the 20min build up show before the game begins. Any takers?
Oh and maybe another 5ver says Keith Wood punches guscott in the face...

revenge is a simple 7 letter word and a lot easier to right than

"Ireland will feel that they didn't play to their full potential in a World Cup quarter final, and rather let themselves down - though that in itself is a rather hard way fo putting in. Rather than hating the Welsh and wanting revenge for Welsh players playing well or beyond the laws - though Williams try in Cardiff does need to be considered - Ireland will want to show what they feel they really can do"

Christ, that reads like it was written by Flann O'Brien

Sod it!

Ireland want revenge!!!!!!

Well its funny SARS ill give u that

ANyway moving on i guess its easier for me to get on board the revenge bus rather then convince everyone to opposite.

The 32 man training squad has been announced just now. Looks like we will be fielding a very strong team!

I worry with the the loss of BOD, his leadership amongst everything else will be sorely missed and leave DK with a very difficult decision for the 13 jersey. I think McFadden will get it. and deserves it, with Earls on the left wing. But it could easily be Earls in the 13 shirt with Trimble on the left wing. Several other less obvious choices also. but those would be my 2 possibilities

Also just read this:
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Welsh coach Warren Gatland has delayed the naming of his Wales team to face Ireland because of injury concerns to Rhys Priestland and Dan Lydiate.

Gatland has given outhalf, Priestland (knee) and blindside flanker Lydiate (ankle) until Friday to prove their fitness, when he is then expected to name the starting team to face Ireland.
---

Injuries like this would be good for Ireland, tho it remains to be seen how legit they are. Also to be fair i would rather we play a full strength Welsh side. Not for bragging rights, but to really get an idea of where we stand.

Also from a Welsh point of view, a win in Dublin is going to kick start them big time and if history holds true a welsh team off to a winning start against a good side are very difficult to stop.

For me Priestland is the one that will make the biggest difference, even though Jenkins is the better player. If Priestland is out it could be Mike Phillips and / or Stephen Jones - thats pretty much ten man rugby

It seems that Hook is First choice after Priestland, Jones has been called up to the welsh squad as "training cover" but they seem dead set on Hook at ten should Priestland not make it.

I have always rated Hook very highly but ONLY as a centre. Never as a Ten. For me a great centre but an emergency ten.

So we're roughly all agreed that the table will be something like

France W5 L0
Ireland W3 L2
England W3 L2
Wales W2 L3
Scotland W1 L4
Italy W0 L5

SARS could well be that way, but ignoring scotland and italy i think the other 4 are interchangeable.

Tho realistically we sort of have a 2 tier competition going on, with Scotland and Italy in tier 2.
And in tier 1 England and France are unknown quantities.

its set to be a very interesting tournament, with this first weekend only having one pivotal game. Wales v Ireland as you would expect England and France to come away with a win each. The Wales, Ireland clash sets up one of the main contenders from the get-go

Time perhaps too get a sportsguru pool going... if there is any interest from others i will start one otherwise never mind and also bite me! ;-D

What is a sportsguru pool? I was going to have a Six Nations weekly predictions thing - is that similar - sportsguru sounds more "net-savvy"

http://www.sportguru.co.uk

Its a prediction site for all sports. Its really excellent but i suppose if its just me and you no point in starting a pool.However you are automatically joining the global pool anyway, but aside from that we can make a private pool.
Anyway We can just do it here and keep track like with the HC

Tho i prefer their scoring system to yours SARS :P
because u dont pick the exact score but instead the margin. For example, Ireland by 7 it dont matter if the score is 37 to 30... just the margin. Scoring system is below:

Win Point (WP)
The meat and bread of SportGuru. You'll score a Win Point if you correctly predict the winner of a game (or a draw, where applicable), irrespective of margin:

Margin Point (MP)
The Margin Point rewards accuracy in margin: if your margin prediction is within 5 points of the actual score margin, you'll pick up a MP worth 0.5 pts.

Bonus Point (BP)
The Bonus Point rewards the closest pick(s) in a given pool. It applies inside each pool only and does not count globally. This means whilst you could score the BP in one pool, you might not in another where someone else has made a better pick than you.

Grand Slam Point (GSP)
The Grand Slam Point rewards getting all the winners in a given round of the tournament correct. It does not necessarily apply to all rounds.

So Like this.

Ire v Wal - Ire by 10
Eng v Sco - Eng by 7
Fra v Ita - Fra by 25

Maximum points is 7.5 for this round and so on. ANd u carry ur points on to the next week.

OK

We'll do that, I'll start a match by match analysis and forecast tomorrow and we can put the predictions in there

Ok oh and my predictions above are not my real predictions! just an example... i want to see the match day 22's before i venture a guess