Wales wins the Six Nations Championship

Well, they had a lot of drama in this year's Six Nations Rugby Championship.  Six Nations Rugby is probably the closest thing you'll find in the rest of the world to SEC football, and this year's version was even more dramatic.  Here's what happened:

In the first round, played on February 7, France crushed Italy 50-10, Scotland stunned England 11-6, and Wales squeezed past Ireland 21-16, largely because an Irish player was thrown out of the game.

In the second round, played on February 13 and 14, England crushed Italy 41-18, France edged Ireland 15-13, and Wales squeezed past Scotland 25-24, largely because a Scottish player was thrown out of the game.

In the third round, played on February 27, Ireland crushed Italy 48-10, and Wales hammered England 40-24, largely because Wales was a much better team on the night.  The match between France and Scotland was postponed due to COVID issues.

In the fourth round, played on March 13 and 14, Wales crushed Italy 48-7, England edged France 23-20, and Ireland slipped past Scotland 27-24.

So that brought us to the fifth round, which is normally the conclusion of the Six Nations.  At this point Wales was 4-0 and France was 2-1.  No one else could catch Wales.  If Wales beat France, they would have a "Grand Slam" (a sweep of England, France, Ireland, and Scotland) and they would win the title.  If France beat Wales, the title would be decided by the France/Scotland game that had been postponed.  All over Britain, the non-Welsh fans complained that Wales had been lucky to get past Ireland and Scotland, and the Welsh fans complained that everyone else wasn't giving them enough credit.  Over here, I thought Wales should be more focused on France.

In the fifth round, played on March 20 and 21, Scotland crushed Italy 52-10, Ireland smashed England 32-18, and Wales led France 30-27 in injury time.  France was down to 14 men, but Wales was down to 13 men (welcome to France!)  Sure enough, France scored a very late try to beat Wales 32-30.

Anguish across Wales.  Joy in France.  Confusion in America, where France would normally have the tie-breaker since it won the head-to-head matchup.  But they do these things differently in Europe.  To win the title, France needed to beat Scotland tonight, in Paris, by more than 20 points -- and it also needed to score a bonus point for scoring four tries.

Of course, the Welsh spent the whole week in despair.  Scotland had not won in Paris for 22 years.  But on the night, Scotland was magnificent.  Not only did France fail to win by 20 points, it failed to win at all.  Scotland pulled out a 27-23 victory with a late try, and Wales didn't need to rely on the tie-breaker after all.

Here are the final standings in one of the most dramatic Six Nations ever played.  (You get four points for a win, two points for a draw, plus a bonus point for scoring four or more tries in a match or losing by seven points or fewer):

1.  Wales:  4-1-0 (4 bonus points) (20 points)

2.  France:  3-2-0 (4 bonus points) (16 points)

3.  Ireland:  3-2-0 (3 bonus points) (15 points) (point differential of 48)

4.  Scotland:  3-2-0 (3 bonus points) (15 points) (point differential of 43)

5.  England:  2-3-0 (2 bonus points) (10 points)

6.  Itlay:  0-5-0 (0 bonus points) (0 points)

Rugby World Cup Quarterfinals

The Welsh and the Scots gave it everything they had, but the teams from the Southern Hemisphere were just too good in the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals this weekend:

South Africa 23, Wales 19
New Zealand 62, France 13
Argentina 43, Ireland 20
Australia 35, Scotland 34

Now that Wales has been eliminated, our interest in the Rugby World Cup has waned dramatically.  We wish the remaining teams good luck, and we'll check in with rugby again once Wales does something of interest.  In the meantime, we leave you with this footage of Welsh fans in Cardiff as Wales completed its 28-25 win over England in the group stage.

The Rugby World Cup

So here's the deal with rugby:  every four years, they play a Rugby World Cup, which is modeled on the Soccer World Cup.  The Rugby World Cup features 20 nations from all over the world.  But there are only about 9 or 10 countries that are good at rugby.  So the whole group stage is basically an exercise to eliminate one or two teams.  The rest of the games are blowouts, or games among teams with no chance to move on.  For example, here was how the United States did at the Rugby World Cup:

Samoa 25, United States 16
Scotland 39, United States 16
South Africa 64, United States 0
Japan 28, United States 18

As you can probably tell, South Africa and Scotland advanced from our group.

But this year, for reasons that I still don't understand, three of the best rugby-playing nations on earth -- England, Australia, and Wales -- were all drawn into the same group (along with Fiji and Uruguay).  This Rugby World Cup is being played in England, and Australia almost always beats Wales, so the Welshmen felt a bit put out by this whole development.  Here's what happened:

1.  On September 26, England led 25-18 in the second half -- and two Welsh players had been stretchered off with injuries.  BUT NEVER UNDERESTIMATE WELSH SPIRIT!  The Welsh hate England above all teams, and they FOUGHT BACK to take a 28-25 lead.  Nevertheless, England still had time to tie or take the lead.  The English drove down into Welsh territory, and were in a good position to kick a field goal (or whatever the equivalent is called in rugby) for three points and a tie.  But England decided to go for the win.  They did not kick for three points, but went for a try (the rugby version of a touchdown) and victory.  BUT NEVER UNDERESTIMATE WELSH SPIRIT!  The injured Welsh team HELD, and Wales beat England 28-25.  Welsh media filled up with video clips that looked almost exactly like the clips you see of Kentucky fans after UK wins a big game.

2.  On October 3, Australia stomped England 33-13, thus effectively eliminating England at the group stage.  As you might imagine, the Welsh were transported with joy over this development.

3. On October 10, Australia and Wales met to decide first place in their group.  In a hard-fought match, Australia ground out a 15-6 win.  The English press pointed out that if England had taken the tie with Wales, the tie-breaker would have favored England, who could have advanced to the elimination rounds.  BUT MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE SHOWN WALES MORE RESPECT.

Anyway, nothing of interest happened in any of the other groups, and we are now looking at the following quarterfinals:

October 17:  South Africa v. Wales.  South Africa is favored by 9 1/2 points with an over/under of 39 1/2 points.  So that would work out to something like a 24-15 win for the Springboks.

October 17:  New Zealand v. France.  New Zealand is favored by 12 1/2 points with an over/under of 40 1/2.  So that would work out to something like a 27-14 win for the Kiwis.

October 18:  Ireland v. Argentina.  Ireland is favored by 4 1/2 points with an over/under of 37 1/2 points.  So that would work out to something like a 21-17 win for the Irish.

October 18:  Australia v. Scotland.  I couldn't find an over/under line on this game, but Australia is favored by 15 1/2 points.

So as you can see, even in the quarter-finals, three of the games feature heavy favorites.  But at least the Welsh will get one more chance to show their mettle.

Here's a list of the Rugby World Cup Finals:

1987:  New Zealand 29, France 9
1991:  Australia 12, England 6
1995:  South Africa 15, New Zealand 12 (after extra time)
1999:  Australia 35, France 12
2003:  England 20, Australia 17 (after extra time)
2007:  South Africa 15, England 6
2011:  New Zealand 8, France 7

Wales!

The last we heard from the Welsh Rugby Team was in October, when they were being cheated in the Semi-Finals of the Rugby World Cup. What should have been an easy win over France and a trip to the title game was, thanks to a horrible officiating decision, turned into a one-point defeat.

But Wales, being Wales, did not give up. Instead, they came home and concentrated on powering their way through the Six Nations, a competition of the six major rugby-playing nations in Europe: England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, and Italy.

Wales started with a difficult road game in Ireland, where they pulled out a hard-fought 23-21 victory. Then they came home and pounded Scotland 27-13. Then they picked up a rare win in England, beating the English 19-12. Then they had an easy time at home, beating Italy 24-3.

That left France, who had ground out a record of 2-1-1: they lost to England by two points and tied Ireland. Wales were favored, but France had one card left to play. They refused to allow Wales to close the retractable roof at their stadium, meaning that the game would feature a sloppy field. This was to France's advantage, as they were hoping to slow down the superior Welsh attack.

But it wasn't enough. Wales showed their mettle with a 16-9 victory over France. As a result, Wales have not merely won the Six Nations; they have scored a "Grand Slam" -- as it's called when England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, or France beat all four of the others in the same year. It is Wales's third Grand Slam in the last eight years -- they also turned the trick in 2005 and 2008 -- and marks this as a Golden Age of Welsh Rugby.

Here are the final standings for this year's Six Nations:

1. Wales: 5-0-0 (10 points)
2. England: 4-1-0 (8 points)
3. Ireland: 2-2-1 (5 points) (point difference of 27)
4. France: 2-2-1 (5 points) (point difference of 15)
5. Italy: 1-4-0 (2 points)
6. Scotland: 0-5-0 (0 points)

Rugby World Cup: New Zealand 8 - 7 France (Final)

In 1979, the SEC re-launched its end-of-the-season basketball tournament, which it hadn't played since the early 1950's. Naturally, we Kentucky fans expected to dominate the tournament. But we lost in the final in 1979 and 1980, and we were bounced in the quarter-finals in 1981. In 1982, however, the tournament was scheduled for Rupp Arena, and UK fans thought this fact alone would pretty much solve the problem. Surely the Big Blue would win the SEC on its home floor. In the quarter-finals, we beat Auburn 89-66, and then we beat Ole Miss 62-58 in the semis. That left only Alabama. But in one of the worst games ever played at Rupp, a tense and unhappy Kentucky team lost, 48-46. (Derrick Hord was 4-13 in that game, and I realize now this is one of the reasons I disliked him so much).

With that background in mind, I had real doubts about New Zealand's ability to break its long-time curse and win the Rugby World Cup for the first time since 1987. The Kiwi fans had been celebrating all week since they beat Australia in the semi-finals. Their only remaining opponent was France, and they had beaten France 37-17 only a few weeks before. But I was pretty certain that France had not gone all-out in that game, and that they would have new plans for the big final. I also figured that the Kiwis would choke under the enormous pressure of their country's expectations.

That is basically what happened. France played a strong and determined game, while New Zealand spent the whole second half on its back foot, basically just waiting for the whistle to blow while they were still ahead. Also the French apparently got some bad breaks with the officiating, but this Welsh fan will have no sympathy for them on that point. Finally, the game was over and New Zealand could celebrate. For the next four years, no one can deny that they are the champions of the world.

Another UK analogy may be useful here. In 1984, Kentucky finally won the SEC tournament. In another very ugly game in Nashville, a heavily favored UK squad overcame its nerves, another terrible shooting day, and the efforts to Charles Barkley to scrape to a 51-49 victory over Auburn. And ever since that burden was lifted, the Cats have done pretty well in that tournament. Maybe the same thing will happen to the Kiwis.

Rugby World Cup: Australia 6 - 20 New Zealand

Kiwi fans will be relieved after the All Blacks of New Zealand downed their rivals from Australia with great ease. New Zealand moves on to next Sunday's final, where they will face a France team that they beat 37-17 in the group stages. So it looks as though New Zealand's long years without a World Cup title (they haven't won this competition since 1987) may finally be at an end.

But they're very lucky they got to avoid a red-hot Wales team that lose in the semi-finals only because of a terrible referee decision, which was itself based on a really stupid rule.

Rugby World Cup Semi-Final: Wales 8 - 9 France (Final)

The events in Eden Park tonight will not be surprising to anyone who knows who international organizations work, and who realizes that in any match, France will get special treatment. This is so despite the fact that French teams -- both in rugby and in other games -- are well-known for their dirty tactics.

So here's the story. Wales have represented their nation in exactly the way you would have expected -- they play bright, exciting rugby, and they give it their all in every game. France have also represented their nation -- they did nothing of interest during the pool stages, where the games are largely meaningless, then they surprised England in the quarter-finals by jumping out to an early lead and hanging on for a 19-12 win.

In today's semi-final, probably the most important rugby match in Welsh history, the Welsh jumped out to an early 3-0 lead and looked much the better team in the early going. After 18 minutes, however, the Wales captain made what appeared to be a hard, but fair, tackle against a French player. Under the circumstances -- the Rugby World Cup Semi-Final -- most British journalists assumed that the referee would simply award a penalty to France and allow play to continue. But in this case, of course, the most relevant circumstance was that France was playing in an important international competition. So, naturally, the Welsh captain was thrown out of the game, and Wales were forced to play with only 14 men to 15 for France.

It is, of course, virtually impossible for 14 men to outscore 15 men over the course of 62 minutes, so at that point the game was effectively over. Or at least, it should have been, if France were any good. In fact, Wales's 14 men were almost better than France's 15 men. France spent the next 32 minutes building up a 9-3 lead, after which they went into the rugby equivalent of a prevent defense. Wales, being Wales fought hard to the bitter end. With 22 minutes to go, they scored a try to make the score 9-8, but missed the conversion that would have given them the lead. And with four minutes to go, Wales had a penalty kick to take the lead, but it was from the midway point in the field, and the kick came up about six inches short. And that was all she wrote.

Now you may think it's odd to have a rule whereby one team can be forced to play a man down for virtually the entire game -- it would seem to give too much power to the official and create endless possibilities for unfair results. Or you might think that even if such a rule exists, officials would be careful about enforcing such a strict penalty. But if you follow British sports, you understand that this sort of thing happens all the time. Of course, this is assuming that the British team even gets to play all of its good players to start with -- which doesn't always happen.

And so, thanks to questionable refereeing and good luck, the French are on their way to the Rugby World Cup final. What a disaster for Wales.

I am so, so glad to be an American, so that my hopes and dreams as a sports fan cannot be disrupted by international referees.

Rugby World Cup: Quarter-finals

Never underestimate the French; I thought they were probably sand-bagging in that game with Tonga. And it was an unfortunate day for South Africa when Australia lost to Ireland to slip into second place in their pool. In fact, three of the pool winners were knocked out in the quarter-finals, with only New Zealand surviving:

Saturday, October 8:
Ireland 10 - 22 Wales
England 12 - 19 France

Sunday, October 9:
South Africa 9 - 11 Australia
New Zealand 33 -10 Argentina

This sets up the following semi-finals:

Saturday, October 15:
Wales v. France

(Wales leads the all-time series 43-42-3, but France is 26-7 in the series since 1983)

Sunday, October 16:
Australia v. New Zealand

(New Zealand leads the all-time series 96-41-5, but Australia has won two of the last three, including a 25-20 victory in August. It is impossible to overstate what a calamity it would be for New Zealand to lose this game.)

Rugby World Cup: Ireland 10 - 22 Wales

Wales is a small, mountainous country that sent many great and talented settlers to the United States -- even if the Welsh-Americans do not get as much attention as other Celts (such as the Irish) who followed them over here. The Welsh are famous for a variety of national traits, but they may be best known for their passionate love of rugby. Wales has been disappointed in recent World Cups, but now they have made it to the semi-finals for the first time since 1987. According to the Guardian, the Welsh were spectacular in this game.

Next up, Wales will get either England or France in the semis. Wales-England would be a spectacularly emotional game, but I suppose the Welsh (an excitable people who take their sports very seriously, much like their Welsh-American counterparts) will be thrilled no matter whom they play.

The Rugby World Cup

Every four years since 1987, the rugby-playing nations of the world have come together to play the Rugby World Cup. Here are the results of the Final matches so far:

1987 (played in Australia and New Zealand): New Zealand 29, France 9
1991 (Britain and France): Australia 12, England 6
1995 (South Africa): South Africa 15, New Zealand 12
1999 (Wales): Australia 35, France 12
2003 (Australia): England 20, Australia 17
2007 (France): South Africa 15, England 6

These results are incredibly humiliating to the proud folks of New Zealand, who traditionally dominate world rugby. Since 1996, for example, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa have participated in an annual competition known as the "Tri-Nations." New Zealand has won the Tri-Nations 10 times, while South Africa and Australia have won only 3 times each. In fact, New Zealand's Tri-Nations record is 50-22, compared to 29-42-1 for Australia and 28-43-1 for South Africa. But Australia and South Africa each have two Rugby World Cups, while the Kiwis haven't even reached the final since 1995.

The pressure on the All Blacks (as the New Zealand team is traditionally known) is enormous this year -- not only because of their recent failures, but because this year's World Cup is being held in New Zealand. Anything less than a World Title will be seen as a disaster.

This year's World Cup actually started back on September 9, but I haven't written anything about it because the first few weeks were devoted to a pool stage designed to identify the eight quarter-finalists. This is a somewhat ludicrous waste of time, because there are only nine countries that had a chance of advancing: England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina. But in an effort to "grow the game" the RWC actually consists of 20 countries, which results in scores like the following:

9/16/11: New Zealand 83, Japan 7
9/23/11: Australia 63, USA 5
9/24/11: England 67, Romania 3
10/2/11: New Zealand 79, Canada 15

In fact, only one of the nine teams listed above lost a match to any of the other 11 teams. There were four pools of five teams each, with the top two teams in each pool advancing to the quarterfinals. Here were the results:

Pool A: New Zealand (4-0), France (2-2). New Zealand beat France 37-17. France actually lost to Tonga 19-14. Under American principles, Tonga would have advanced, because they also went 2-2 and because they beat France head-to-head. But the RWC breaks ties based on your ability to run up the score against other countries, and France ran up bigger margins against Japan and Canada than Tonga did. And to be fair to France, they had basically clinched second place by the time they played Tonga, so they probably weren't going all out. Plus, France always gets special treatment in international competitions.

Pool B: England (4-0), Argentina (3-1). This was the most interesting pool, because it included Scotland, which meant you had three big powers fighting for two slots. England beat Argentina 13-9 and beat Scotland 16-12. Argentina beat Scotland 13-12, so the Scots are out.

Pool C: Ireland (4-0), Australia (3-1). In the biggest upset of the first round, Ireland beat Australia 15-6. This was a huge deal, as it means that Australia now has to play South Africa in the quarter-finals. The USA was in this group. We went 1-3, as we beat Russia 13-6.

Pool D: South Africa (4-0), Wales (3-1). South Africa beat Wales 17-16 in a real heartbreaker for the Welshmen. But this worked out well, because now Wales can avoid all of the Southern Hemisphere teams until the Final.

These results give us the following quarter-finals:

Saturday, October 8:
In Wellington: Ireland v. Wales (The Irish are given 4 to 5 odds to win this match, while Wales are 11 to 8)

In Auckland: England v. France (England is 4 to 7 to win, while France is 15 to 8)

Sunday, October 9:
In Wellington: South Africa v. Australia (Australia is even money to win, while South Africa is 6 to 5).

In Auckland: New Zealand v. Argentina (New Zealand is 1 to 33 to win, while Argentina chance of winning is 22 to 1)

Six Nations Update

Here were the scores over the weekend (home teams listed first):

England 59 - 13 Italy
Scotland 6 - 24 Wales
Ireland 22 - 25 France

Which gives us the following standings:

England: 2-0-0
France: 2-0-0
Wales: 1-1-0
Ireland: 1-1-0
Scotland: 0-2-0
Italy: 0-2-0

The next round of matches is in two weeks, and the key match is England v. France. Whoever wins that match will almost certainly take the title.

Six Nations Standings

France: 1-0-0
England: 1-0-0
Ireland: 1-0-0
Italy: 0-1-0
Wales: 0-1-0
Scotland: 0-1-0

This weekend's games (home team listed first):
England v. Italy
Scotland v. Wales
Ireland v. France

Wales v. England

Contrary to what most Americans believe, soccer is not the most popular sport in all countries outside North America. In fact, most English-speaking nations (other than England and Scotland) have some other sport that they prefer. India likes cricket. Canada likes hockey. And Wales likes rugby.

Wales is, in many ways, the Kentucky of Europe -- a small country (around 3 million people) -- with a long history of coal mining, Bible-based protestantism, and hymn-singing. And, of course, a determination to preserve its own identity and to stand up to the rich folk from the big city. Anyone who knows Kentucky should not be surprised that nothing makes the Welsh happier than to knock off England -- their bigger and richer neighbor -- in rugby. Traditionally, therefore, the biggest sporting event in Wales is the annual match with England that kicks off the "Six Nations" rugby championship.

Since 1883, the "Home Nations" of the United Kingdom -- Wales, England, Scotland, and Ireland -- have played a series of rugby matches against each other. Each nation plays the others once, and the team with the most victories is the winner. France started playing in 1910, and has participated in every tournament since (except for the tournaments played from 1932 to 1939). Until 1999, therefore, the tournament was known as the "Five Nations." But in that year, Italy joined, and since then the tourney has been known as the Six Nations.

Although Wales is the smallest of the nations, historically it has done very well. Here is the all-time list of outright winners (with shared titles in parentheses):

England: 25 (10)
Wales: 24 (11)
France: 17 (8)
Scotland: 14 (8)
Ireland: 11 (8)
Italy: 0 (0)

Here are the last 10 winners:

2001: England
2002: France
2003: England
2004: France
2005: Wales
2006: France
2007: France
2008: Wales
2009: Ireland
2010: France

This year's tournament starts tonight with England traveling to Cardiff to take on Wales. This will be the 120th meeting between these two ancient rivals. England leads the series by one match (54-53-12), but Wales has won the last three matches played in Wales.

Nevertheless, Wales are somewhat banged up, and England are supposed to be loaded this year, so the English are favored in this match. We at the Heath Post, of course, will be supporting Wales, and we hope they give England the pasting that we always wanted to give Tilghman.