12 Jun 2019
The opening weekend of the 2018 NatWest Six Nations Championship certainly didn’st disappoint. We were treated to 15 tries across the three games, and the string of injuries each camp are having to deal with did not seem to affect the quality of play on the pitch.
Looking ahead to week 2 of this year’ss tournament, Italy’ss brutal start to the campaign doesn’st get any easier with a trip to Aviva Stadium to take on Ireland. Joe Schmidt’ss side overcame France thanks to a long-range drop goal from the boot of Johnny Sexton in the 83rd minute of what was a dramatic finish to the game. Italy, meanwhile, were overpowered by England at the Stadio Olimpico. It’ss difficult to look past a comfortable home win for Ireland here, though you can back an unlikely Italy win at 33/1.
The pick of the weekend games could be at Twickenham, as England host an in-form Wales side who ruthlessly dismantled Scotland in their opening game. Both sides sit atop the table after their respective bonus-point victories in week 1. After the knee injury sustained by scrum-half Ben Youngs, Danny Care is set to earn a record 78th cap in the No 9 jersey. Warren Gatland, meanwhile, has named an unchanged team, despite Liam Williams having returned to training this week.
Wales will be keen not to allow England’ss playmakers the space that was afforded to them by Italy last week, and you can expect defence coach Shaun Edwards to crowd the midfield and stifle England’ss attack. It’ss set to be a very physical game, with very little between the two sides. Indeed, four out of the last five matchups between these two have been decided by a winning margin of five points and under. We expect another close affair at Twickenham, with the home side edging it by five points or less at rugby union betting odds of 5/1.
Rounding off week 2 sees Scotland welcome France to Murrayfield. Both sides are coming off defeats and will be desperate to get their first win of the championship. Scotland were simply blown away in Cardiff, falling way short of the high expectations set for them ahead of the tournament. France, meanwhile, were desperately unlucky to come away empty-handed against Ireland. But for a 42-metre drop goal from Sexton, France would have got off to a winning start. Whilst you can expect a much improved performance from the home side here, we see France heaping further misery on Scotland at 15/8 to get the win.
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