If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix

Preview of the Six Nations Round Two

After a cracking opening round of the Six Nations, which saw England come of age to beat Wales 21- 16 and it was great to hear ‘Swing Low, Sweet Chariot’ around the Millennium Stadium. We also saw a every strong Italy and Scotland performance and even though both sides lost everyone who watched knows they were the better teams.

This weekend England are back at Twickenham and host Italy and later on the evening Ireland welcome France as the weekend finishes off with a cracker at Murrayfield as Scotland take on Wales.

England v Italy

England head coach Stuart Lancaster has announced an unchanged side to the one which was victorious in Cardiff last Friday. Everyone knew, depending on injuries, Lancaster was going to name the same 23 players.

This is a smart move because I think we have a strong, decent centre partnership with Luther Burrell and Jonathan Joseph and to be honest if everyone was fit like Manu Tuilagi and Kyle Eastmond I’d still go for Burrell and Joseph to start centre in the World Cup because these two clicked straight away and why not build on this for a cohesive partnership moving forward.

The only couple of things I want to see against Italians the first being Jonny May even though I do rate him as a brilliant winger and he showed it against New Zealand with a cracking try, but since then he seems unable to find a way into games and to be honest, I think he NEEDS a big performance against Italy otherwise I could see him losing his place especially if Christian Wade has a great game for Wasps this weekend.

The other thing is the 50 minute substitution, it’s not needed and fans on Twitter were annoyed Lancaster took Joe Marler and Dylan Hartley off dead on 50 minutes to bring on Mako Vunipola and Tom Youngs before a scrum and Marler and Hartley were killing it in that area. So I think people would like to see it stopped and by all means bring Vunipola and Youngs on but maybe not if we dominate the scrum or line out again.

One player I hope we get a chance to see is Danny Cipirani because spending the whole of last week’s match on the bench is not fair and I think he might be the first replacement on the pitch.

Italy, meanwhile, will be looking to bring the same performance, which annoyed Ireland last weekend and even though they lost and they’ll likely lose this weekend I’d like to see the visitors make a fist of it and give England a good game.

Line – Ups

Mike Brown – 15 – Luke McLean

Anthony Watson – 14 – Leonardo Sarto

Jonathan Joseph – 13 – Luca Morisi

Luther Burrell – 12 – Andrea Masi

Jonny May – 11 – Giovanbattista Venditti

George Ford – 10 – Kelly Haimona

Ben Youngs – 9 – Edoardo Gori

Joe Marler – 1 – Alberto De Marchi

Dylan Hartley – 2 – Leonardo Ghiraldini

Dan Cole – 3 – Martin Castrogiovanni

Dave Attwood – 4 – George Biagi

George Kruis – 5 – Marco Bortolami

James Haskell – 6 – Mauro Bergamasco

(c) Chris Robshaw – 7 – Francesco Minto

Billy Vunipola – 8 – Sergio Parisse (c)

Replacements

Tom Youngs – 16 – Andrea Manici

Mako Vunipola – 17 – Matias Aguero

Kieran Brookes – 18 – Dario Chistolini

Nick Easter – 19 – Josh Furno

Tom Croft – 20 – Samuela Vunisa

Richard Wigglesworth – 21 – Guglielmo Palazzani

Danny Cipriani – 22 – Tommaso Allan

Billy Twelevetrees  - 23 – Giulio Bisegni

Ireland v France

After a tricky away win against Italy last week Ireland will be happy to be back home and having three senior players back as Jonny Sexton returns after having to sit out with concussion and the fly half will be joined by Jamie Heaslip and Cian Healy.

Sean O’Brien has also been included by head coach Joe Schmidt after the flanker had to sit out of last weekends match due to injury in the warm up. However, I’m surprised to see Ian Keatley not within the replacements because I thought he did his job perfectly well, but I guess having Ian Mudigan there he can cover both fly half and centre.

France, however, will be looking to break their duck as head coach Philippe Saint – Andre has never beaten the men in green since taken over Les Blues as the three encounters have ended in two draws and last year’s narrow defeat to seal Brian O’Driscoll’s perfect send off.

Much like the Wales v England match this game has extra significance as these two sides meet again later this year in the World Cup so bragging rights and pride are also at stake.

Saint – Andre will also be hoping for a much better performance as he knows his side were lucky to get the win against a very competitive Scotland team.

Line – Ups

Rob Kearney – 15 – Scott Spedding

Tommy Bowe – 14 – Yoann Huget

Jared Payne – 13 – Mathieu Bastareaud

Robbie Henshaw – 12 – Wesley Fofana

Simon Zebo – 11 – Teddy Thomas

Jonathan Sexton – 10 – Camille Lopez

Conor Murray -9 – Rory Knckott

Jack McGrath – 1 – Eddy Ben Arous

Rory Best – 2 – Guilhem Guirado

Mike Ross – 3 – Rabah Slimani

Devin Toner – 4 – Pascal Pape

(c) Paul O’Connell – 5 – Yoann Maestri

Peter O’Mahony – 6 – Thierry Dusautior (c)

Sean O’Brien – 7 – Bernard Le Roux

Jamie Heaslip – 8 – Damien Chouly

Replacements

Sean Cronin – 16 – Benjamin Kayser

Cian Healy – 17 – Uini Atonio

Marty Moore – 18 – Vincent Debaty

Iain Henderson – 19 – Romain Taofifenua

Jordi Murphy – 20 – Loan Goujon

Isaac Boss – 21 – Morgan Parra

Ian Mudigan – 22 – Remi Tales

Felix Jones – 23 – Remy Lamerat

Scotland v Wales

This is the game I’m most looking forward to because I was so impressed by how Vern Cotter has changed Scotland into a team which could beat any of these teams on their day. They took France head on and were so unlucky not to get the win despite getting the only try.

Cotter has only made three changes to last week’s side as Sean Lamont replaces the injured Tommy Seymour on the wing and there’s a change in the front row as well with tight head prop Geoff Cross coming in for Euan Murray who doesn’t play on Sunday due to religious reasons.

The biggest surprised is not seeing try scorer Dougie Fife included in the 23 man squad and has his place on the bench taken by Edinburgh back Matt Scott.

Wales, meanwhile, will be looking to bounce back after the 21 – 16 defeat against England and being criticised for playing George North as the winger was concussed during the loss and has now been replaced by Liam Williams.

Now prop Samson Lee will also miss the game due to failing the recovery period from a concussion he suffered last week and has been replaced at tight head by Ospreys’ Aaron Jarvis.

Line – Up

Stuart Hogg – 15 – Leigh Halfpenny

Sean Lamont – 14 – Aex Cuthbert

Mark Bennett – 13 – Jonathan Davies

Alex Dunbar – 12 – Jamie Roberts

Tim Visser – 11 – Liam Williams

Finn Russell – 10 – Dan Bigger

(c) Greig Laidlaw – 9 – Rhys Webb

Alasdair Dickinson – 1 – Gethin Jenkins

Ross Ford – 2 – Richard Hibbard

Geoff Cross – 3 – Aaron Jarvis

Richie Gray – 4 – Jake Bell

Jonny Gray – 5 – Alun Wyn Jones

Rob Harley – 6 – Dan Lydiate

Blair Cowen – 7 – Sam Warbuton (c)

John Beattie – 8 – Taulupe Faletau

Replacements

Fraser Brown – 16 – Scott Baldwin

Gordon Reid – 17 – Paul James

Jon Welsh – 18 – Scott Andrews

Jim Hamilton – 19 – Luke Charteris

Alasdair Strokosch – 20 – Justin Tipuric

Sam Hidalgo – Clyne – 21 – Mike Phillips

Greig Tonks – 22 – Rhys Priestland

Matt Scott – 23 – Scott Williams