Who’s hot and who’s not: French maverick ‘having a real blast’, Steve Borthwick ‘asleep at the wheel’ and toxic Irish ‘keyboard warriors’
Matthieu Jalibert, left, lit up Cardiff for the French but Steve Borthwick's Scottish trip with England was a nightmare
It’s time for our Monday wrap of who has their name in lights and who is making the headlines for all the wrong reasons after the weekend.
THEY’RE ON FIRE!
Matthieu Jalibert: What a difference a year makes. It was after the Round Two Six Nations loss last year, away to England, when the French maverick became Fabien Galthié’s fall guy and was painfully axed from the side, but everything is now sweetness and light two matches into the 2026 championship. With Romain Ntamack injured, there was no selection debate surrounding Jalibert’s Les Bleus recall this month. He was simply the next man up, but rather than just playing a part in a star-studded side, he has gone on to hog the limelight with his finessed standard of swashbuckling Bordeaux-style play.
Two matches into the Six Nations, the 27-year-old’s now potent influence is reflected in several attack statistical categories on the Six Nations website. He is top of the tournament’s offload chart (10), the try assist chart (4) and the kick bounced chart (13), and joint top of the defenders beaten count (10). There are also numerous other encouraging numbers: two tries scored, including Sunday’s bonus-point clincher in Wales, 168 metres made from 32 carries, and seven retained kicks for a second-best retained kick percentage of 33.3. In other words, he is finally having a real blast with an assured level of maturity that didn’t exist in his previous runs in the team. We can’t wait to see what comes next in Round Three versus Italy.
Finn Russell: Can he play England every week? When the remembrances are eventually collated whenever he calls time on his thrilling Test-level career, his cat-like toying with the mousey English will dominate the highlights reel. Apart from last year’s missed conversions calamity in London, the Auld Enemy annually seems to get the best out of the No.10 and last Saturday was no different as his first-half display oozed class that Maro Itoje and co. had no answer for.
You’d think at this stage that the England defence would have tactics they can depend on when confronted by Russell, but after all these years featuring in the Calcutta Cup, he remains as elusive as ever in the fixture. His one-handed tap-on assist for opening Huw Jones’ try was a prime example of how rugby genuinely can nourish the soul in a way that other sports can’t, and this fuzzy feeling was generated again by the way he evaded the traffic and got the canny kick ahead away that resulted in Ellis Genge’s embarrassing try-conceded gaffe. Russell and Gregor Townsend have had their past differences, but the coach will be massively grateful that Russell fired up the imagination at Twickenham and put to bed for now the sack speculation stalking the Scottish boss.
Stuart McCloskey: Funny how it can all fall into place overnight at the age of 33 after waiting an eternity. It was 10 years ago when the Irish midfielder with the silky handling skills made his Test debut away to England, but so unmoved was Joe Schmidt with what he saw, there was a 21-month gap before he capped the player a second time. Overall, there were just three appearances in total on the Kiwi’s watch and while Andy Farrell did release the handbrake, the foot on the accelerator has taken until now to be pressed fully to the floor.
Yes, Bundee Aki’s suspension for grumbling to match officials has helped McCloskey’s case for inclusion. But the manner of his performances in Paris and Dublin in recent weeks was exquisite, and there is no doubt that Ireland would have lost to the Italians if the midfielder wasn’t influential on both sides of the ball. There were two sumptuous try assists, including an American football quarterback-style pass, and a hugely important choke tackle turnover in a match where the Irish grimly clung onto a nervous seven-point win. McCloskey’s belated blooming is a lesson in remaining patient and retaining belief. His overnight success has been 10 years in the making.
Hollie Davidson: You could be pedantic and try to nit-pick the referee’s performance in her Six Nations debut, but this is a moment to read the room and instead tip the hat to Michele Lamaro’s unprompted post-game tribute to the official. The Italian skipper could well have had the hump given how his team came so close to getting a treasured result in Dublin, but he instead magnanimously congratulated the Scot for becoming the first woman to referee a men’s Six Nations game.
At a time when the narrative surrounding the refs is generally negative due to the repeated inconsistencies and frustrations, it was a classy gesture from the Italian skipper to congratulate her and acknowledge her breakthrough. “She has been doing so much for world rugby and our game, and it’s an important thing to say,” he enthused. “I appreciated the work we did together today on the pitch. Whatever the decision was, I was backing her.” Well said.
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Italy’s new-found durability: Consistently good performances are something that have eluded Italy across their Six Nations era. Even what is considered their greatest campaign, the 2013 season where they picked off France and Ireland, didn’t escape scrutiny as they let themselves down on the scoreboard when beaten by Scotland and Wales. But there now seems to be a real steel about the business they are conducting under Gonzalo Quesada.
Last year’s Six Nations had some damaging setbacks, generating fears they could be on the slide after some growth in their style of play under Kieran Crowley, but Quesada is now benefiting from the tactical approach he took to last July’s tour of South Africa. Several front-liners were left at home, and the outcome is a more competitive squad. Their vibrant performance in Dublin, following on from the home win over Scotland, was a great reflection of the progress they are making. Not only is there biff in the scrum and punch in the forward exchanges, attacking delights such as Tommaso Menoncello are proving very easy on the eye.
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COLD AS ICE!
Steve Borthwick: Deary me, how could the English coach get it so badly wrong? Having had his struggles in getting his team organised, a situation that at times prompted calls for his head during his stewardship and accusations that he was out of his depth, he should surely have been alive to the danger of his team falling in love with itself after a 12-match winning run. Brutally, he wasn’t. Found to be asleep at the wheel in Edinburgh, the much-needed statement away win to rubberstamp the progress of the last 12 months eluded the head coach, sending him homeward to think again.
There has been so much made in recent months about his ‘Pom Squad’ that England forgot that a match can still be lost before the subs arrive. Falling 17-0 and then 31-10 behind early in the second half of a match where you know the Scots will come out firing has now reignited concerns over their once-leaky defence and raised questions about their appetite for the collisions. Too many leading players didn’t deliver, and that failure is on Borthwick. No wonder Scottish fans in front of the English coaching box weren’t shy in letting him know he had got it so badly wrong.
Irish keyboard warriors: It’s been a delicate weekend for Farrell and co. in charge of Ireland. The online toxicity of the Sam Prendergast-Jack Crowley debate grubbily reached fresh heights following Saturday’s scratchy 20-3 win over Italy, and there was also the unsavoury racist commentary surrounding Edwin Edogbo’s Test debut, an appalling development that has resulted in the IRFU launching an investigation on Monday to identify the perpetrators.
The disgusting racism storm had yet to ignite when Farrell conducted his post-match media, but he wasn’t shy in tackling the Prendergast-Crowley social media narrative that has become deeply personalised rather than just a rugby reflection on the form of the two players. “What’s gone on over the last year or something, especially with the keyboard warriors, people need to ask themselves, really, sometimes, ‘Are we Irish? Do we want people to do well or not? The keyboard warriors on Twitter, or whatever you call it now, need to cop on and try to help these kids.” He definitely has a valid point.
Fans defend Edwin Edogbo after Ireland debut is marred by racist abuse
Steve Tandy’s Wales: If there is a straw to clutch from the latest tale of Welsh woe, it’s that the much-criticised record low Six Nations attendance of 57,744 at the Principality Stadium is still healthier than what the Irish can accommodate at their limited-capacity Aviva Stadium, so they haven’t yet hit rock bottom in that regard. Everywhere else, though, there seems to be carnage. The Welsh did manage to nip their awful card trouble in the bud, conceding just nine penalties to the French and leaving the sin-bin vacant, but did that improvement come on the back of increased passive tackling?
No team will ever compete at Test-level with a 67 per cent tackle success rate, never mind threaten a win, but there is something concerning about how Tandy is adjusting to life as head coach. His previous role was as Scottish defence coach, so he should know a thing or two about how to set up a backs-to-the-wall rearguard and limit the bleeding. Instead, Sunday was the fifth time in his six matches that Wales have shipped 48 points or more and copped 73, 41 and 42-point drubbings in the last three. That’s inexcusable.
Henry Arundell: How typical. Just a week after crediting the winger for his seemingly fresh maturity following his return as a Test starter after a hiatus since Rugby World Cup 2023, he goes and consigns that sentiment to the bin in dramatic fashion at Murrayfield. The 23-year-old was rightly singled out for praise for his Round One hat-trick against the beleaguered Welsh, but he is now in the dock for the card trouble that contributed to England’s Calcutta Cup battering.
There can be an argument made that he was simply unlucky for getting sin-binned for his breakdown messing – players don’t usually see yellow so early in a match for something like that, and he showed pluck by returning from his rest and finding the try line. But the second yellow that followed, which was upgraded to a 20-minute by the foul play bunker, was plain daft. Taking someone out in the air just isn’t on anymore with the way that area of the game is now strictly refereed, so how he dangerously upended Kyle Steyn just before the interval was nuts, given he had already missed 10 minutes of the first half.
Ben O’Keeffe: Last weekend’s puddles of Rome must have left the official wet behind the ears as he swapped refereeing Italy’s Six Nations win over Scotland for getting a big decision wrong on his Super Rugby Pacific return in New Zealand. Tupou Vaa’i’s first-half try for the Chiefs turned out to be an Eden Park winner against the Blues, but tournament officials have now admitted the score should not have been awarded.
O’Keeffe has no hesitation awarding the try but he has now been left red-faced as a tournament statement admitted that the Vaa’i swan dive over two players close to the line was illegal. “The review concluded that Vaa’i’s actions constituted leaving the ground to avoid a tackle, rather than simply diving forward to score a try, and that as a result the try should not have been awarded.” A penny for your thoughts now, Ben.
