This weekend the 6 nations start. England will be looking to defend their crowd. England have made some major changes since the World Cup. Martin Johnson has gone and Stuart Lancaster has been install as the temporary manager for the 6 nations competition.
The players have changed hugely as well. A few big players have retired from international rugby. The main players are former Captain Lewis Moody and the Legend that is Jonny Wilkinson. James Haskell is having a year off rugby and Nick Easter is thought to be to old.
England have massively changed their squad bringing in 9 uncapped players. Toby Flood is now the most experience player in the squad. There are 18 forwards and 14 backs. The oldest player is Lee Mears at 32. The squad is very much chosen as the start of building a great team for the 2015 world cup. This will take some time but the players will need to get use to the big matches and get prepared for everything on the pitch.
There has been a lot of talk about who is going to be the new England Captain. Flood, Youngs, Hartley, Wood and Robshaw were the one’s that were being talked about the future captain and taking the reins for a while to come. It eventually got decided that Wood be Captain but because he is injured and so is Flood and Youngs that Robshaw would be given the Captaincy for the 1st 2 games of the 6 nations. It seems that all of the thinking with the players has been for the long term future and not necessarily the short term.
England need to win the 2015 Rugby World Cup. The tournament is being held in England and if England are to confirm themselves as a World power they need to win. This 6 nations is the start of the campaign to get the Webb Ellis trophy in just under 4 years time.
England have got 3 away matches and 2 home matches meaning that it will tough for them to retain the trophy.
England’s 1st match is at Murrayfield against Scotland at 5pm on the Saturday the 4th of the Feb. The following week on the 11th England go to the Stadio Olimpico to face Italy at 4pm
After a 2 week break England having Wales coming to visit England for thier 1st match at Twickenham stadium for a 4pm kick off on the 25th. Then following another 2 weeks gap. England go to face France at the Stade de France for 3pm kick off on the 11th of March.
England’s final game of the competition is on the 17th of March at Twickenham against Ireland at 5pm.
England’s 2 home games against Wales and Ireland are where England should be able to use the home support to beat them. However neither will go away without a battle and they could very easierly beat England even at Twickenham. I’m not sure that England will be able to get anything from the World cup finalist (and nearly winners) France away. I think the French are going to be too much for England especially this new side. England should be able to beat both Scotland and Italy even if they are away. Scotland will be doing all they can to beat England and may even come very close with a up and coming team and with the every improving Italy nothing is for certain.
I think England will come 3rd this year but if they are not careful then they could end up as low as 5th and if they do well they could even win it. England manager Lancaster wants the job long term and he is being judged on this 6 nations performance only so if he wants to keep the job then he needs to make sure England are a force to be reckoned with and to make them look impressive. This is very possible and is what should happen if the right things are being done which so far they seem to be. However with all the change that has happened recently it is easy to slip into trouble and struggle to get out of it. I hope the later doesn’t happen and England challenge for the Trophy.
Who do you think is going to win and how do you think England are going to do?
The odds for the Trophy are
France 5/4 Wales 10/3 Ireland 4/1 England 5/1 Scotland 25/1 Italy 150/1
If you want to make a bet go to
http://www.paddypower.com/bet/rugby-union/the-six-nations
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