2017 Team of the Championship

As the 2017 Championship has finished I have selected my team of the Championship after all of the games and with England being crowed champions although Ireland denied them the Grand Slam by beating them 13-9 in the Aviva Stadium in the final game of the Championship.

15 Stuart Hogg

14 Keith Earls

13 Jonathan Joseph

12 Owen Farrell

11 George North

10 Jonathan Sexton

9 Conor Murray

8 CJ Stander

7 Justin Tipuric

6 Maro Itoje

5 Jonny Gray

4 Joe Launchbury

3 Tadgh Furlong

2 Rory Best

1 Jack Mc Grath

There is my team of the Championship and I hope it opens up a debate for everyone else to see who they would put in and take out.

By

Cian Mc Gibney

20/03/2017

Ireland Vs England Preview

Ireland take on England at the Aviva Stadium this weekend but before the main course , there are three other Ireland vs England clashes that take place today in Donnybrook and over in the RDS where the Ireland Legends face there English counterparts.

Tonight the Under 20s will try and deny England a Grand Slam the first of three games where the Grand Slam will be on offer unfortunately for Ireland they can only win it in one of the three games this weekend in Donnybrook where Paula Fitzpatrick and her charges will face an England side brimming with confidence.

Ireland haven’t played well in this Championship but have still managed to grind out some big results and set themselves up for a tilt at glory. Players like Kim Flood and Mairead Coyne have stepped up to fill the big shoes left behind by the injury to Niamh Briggs. Tom Tierney has worked on trying to develop the player depth within the senior team with a World Cup to happen later in the year in UCD and Belfast.

Tonight is a massive chance for this side to join the team of 2013 in winning a Grand Slam, no better way for them to do it than by beating England. England for their part are 4 from 4 in this Championship and will come to Dublin hell bent on denying Ireland the perfect way to end this Championship.

All roads lead to Donnybrook this evening and by the sounds of it there will nearly be a sell-out crowd to see the 20s and women take on England. With a good start Ireland make just sneak tonight’s game and get the weekend off to the right start.

Looking to tomorrow at 5pm, Ireland have made a number of big changes to the 23 that played Wales, Kieran Marmion come in to play alongside Jonathan Sexton, Iain Henderson partners Donnacha Ryan in the second row and the positional switch everyone wanted to see has happened where Rob Kearney has been ruled out with a knee injury and Jared Payne comes in for his first cap at full back having won all the rest of his caps at outside centre.

The loss of Conor Murray will have an impact on the way Ireland will play tomorrow and some of the changes to the starting 15 suggest that Schmidt will send his charges out to try and play around England and use directness at certain points during the game.

The hope from an Irish point of view is that all the harsh lessons of the defeats to Scotland and Wales can be learned from and that the much famed line out drive can rediscover the form they showed a few seasons ago under the guidance of John Plumtree. If this particular aspect of their play can fire tomorrow then Ireland may just have found a way to get past the juggernaut that is this England team.

Eddie Jones for his part has played the part of court jester this week to try and take the pressure off his side and the expectations that his team will complete a second straight Grand Slam is coming into view and I am sure there are certain nerves attached with that and if there is nothing Irish people like doing it’s spoiling a party and there is no better party to spoil than an English one.

They are 18 from 18 and are well on the way to setting new World record of 19 straight Test victories  , here’s hoping for the weekend that’s in it that Ireland find a way to stop England and finish the campaign on a high !!

By

Cian Mc Gibney

17/03/2017

England – Six Nations Champions

England were crowed Six Nations Champions after a 61-21 win victory over Scotland at Twickenham. Scotland went into the game with genuine hopes of derailing the English Championship challenge. That particular hope was dashed as early as the 2^nd minute when hooker Fraser Brown was yellow carded for a tip tackle on Elliott Daly.

From the opening exchanges it was very that England were going to put it up to Scotland in the physical stakes and Scotland wilted in the face of an incredible physical challenge where England players like Maro Itoje , James Haskell and Owen Farrell stood up and were counted when it mattered most.

Eddie Jones has continued the good work that Stuart Lancaster started back in 2011 and now England are righted the second best team in World Rugby. There are still a few questions to be answered, can they beat the All Blacks who are still raising the bar after their 2015 World Cup win.

Eddie Jones has defiantly strengthened this England team and will want finish his second Six Nations campaign not alone as champions but they will want to be a double Grand Slam winning team as well. They are very well placed to achieve that particular feat with all of their key players playing well.

Jones has worked on numerous facets of his England team and over the past two seasons we have seen giant strides forward from this squad with only minimal changes between the Grand Slam win in Paris in 2016 and the Championship win in 2017 that could also have a Grand Slam win alongside it as well , only time will tell !!

He has stuck with Dylan Hartley as his skipper even though he has come under real pressure from Jamie George and also his disciplinary issues with Northampton Saints have been well documented. He hasn’t had as much of an influence this season as he had in the 2016 Grand Slam win.

Owen Farrell has taken on a real captain’s role this season and although he wasn’t named skipper he has led from the front and really helped the men inside him namely George Ford and Ben Youngs. The strength of the England forward pack has been huge for this campaign.

Go back 12 months and before the Championship started, Eddie Jones was asked what he wanted to achieve while he was in charge of the England rugby team and while the World Cup in Japan in 2019 is the ultimate aim, he had planned on working on aspects of the team to strengthen their resolve.

He has worked on their forward play with Steve Borthwick and Neal Hatley and now in the aftermath of their decisive win over Scotland, you can now see the back play beginning to take shape and slowly but surely we can now see the fruits of Jones labour taking shape and England have again been crowned Six Nations Champions with a realistic chance of a second successive Grand Slam also in the pipeline.  

Two Years is a long time in sport but England have laid down another marker to New Zealand and the rest of the Rugby World that the 2019 World Cup is certainly now firmly in sight and they are ready to challenge to become World Champions in 2019 like the Class of 2003….

By

Cian Mc Gibney

14/03/2017