Who’s hot and who’s not: ‘What a pro’ Ramos ‘reaps rewards’ but ‘officialdom’ in the dock after Le Crunch ‘farce’ and why ‘robotic’ Borthwick still must go
Thomas Ramos (left) celebrates at Stade de France following the Six Nations match officiated by referee Nika Amashukeli
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!
France: Fabien Galthié won’t be winning popularity contests for his prickly personality, but his ability to pull it all together for the French can only be admired. Winning three Six Nations titles in five seasons, including two in a row, was the stuff of wild dreams when he took charge. This was a France that had fallen into the abyss, repeatedly failing to deliver after the 2010 title was their fifth in a magical nine-season run that started with a 2002 Grand Slam.
Divisive club politics, players not putting it in for the badge and poor coaching had all conspired to rob the French of their consistency and title-winning aura. But Galthié, the World Player of the Year 2002, jumped at the challenge of trying to fix it after Les Bleus’ 2019 Rugby World Cup quarter-final exit to Wales. Yes, he has struck lucky by having generational players such as Antoine Dupont and Thomas Ramos at his disposal, but getting the support of the clubs and the federation aligned was a monumental task and the rewards continue to be reaped.
Andy Farrell: We stuck Farrell’s Ireland in the Broken Thermostat section of this column last week, insisting they needed to deliver against the Scots if they were to regain admittance to They’re on Fire! We wanted them to convincingly show that their demolition of England has genuine substance and wasn’t just a one-off worldie – and boy did they deliver. Scotland coming to Dublin looking for a first Triple Crown since 1990 and going top of the table before France hosted England was a situation full of trepidation.
With Ireland having beaten the Scots in their previous 11 encounters, this 12th meeting was one where they had everything to lose, but they delivered how a well-coached team should and the 43-21 outcome certainly didn’t flatter them. When it came to the silverware-winning moment, with the Scots losing by just five and still being a nuisance, Farrell sprung his bench and the Irish motored home, winning the closing period 17-0. Class.
Wales: Well done, Steve Tandy. Not since March 11, 2023, had they achieved a win in the Six Nations, but they ended that 15-match losing streak in the tournament with Saturday’s victory over Italy. We said after they had spooked Ireland in Dublin in Round Four that that was a team full of players playing for the badge again and that lapsed Welsh supporters needed to get up off the couch, vote with their feet and get back into the stands.
The 69,775 attendance was impressively 12,000 more than the 57,744 that turned up in Round Two versus France and only just marginally lower than the 70,649 that watched the near-miss against Scotland. That was an impressive show of support, and those fans were rewarded by a fast Welsh start. They went on to lead 31-0 before Italy managed 17 in reply, including a last-minute consolation try, so it was a comprehensive victory in which the likes of two-try Aaron Wainwright and skipper Dewi Lake inspired. It was just Wales’ third win in 28 Tests, but the Tandy era is definitely now up and running. Well played.
Thomas Ramos: The consensus has always been that successful Test rugby teams need worth their weight in gold place-kickers and in full-back Ramos, the French have a metronomic boot to cherish. Beating England with a last-gasp kick was nothing new to him; he had done precisely this in Lyon two years ago when the 2024 Le Crunch went down to the wire. However, to do it with the Championship title on the line and knowing there was no tomorrow if he missed was quite something else.
Even the s***housery that was Maro Itoje’s debate over where the kick was from, and also the way the dithering referee Nika Amashukeli handled the lead-up to the kick, didn’t faze Ramos in the slightest. The cool customer 30-year-old just stuck the ball on the tee on 82:26, a full two minutes after the whistle had blown to stop play for the penalty, and his strike of the ball 21 seconds later was a thing of beauty, smack between the middle of the uprights. What a pro!
Robert Baloucoune: The idea that the winger would be receiving the BKT Rising Player award, which recognises the most impactful talent featuring in their first ever Championship last Saturday, would have been dismissed as gibberish if suggested at the start of the season. The winger was a beaten docket in international terms, washed up and unwanted by Farrell ever since his fourth appearance in November 2022.
Form and fitness became a struggle for him at Ulster, but he finally thrived provincially over the winter and has now ended the Six Nations with a well-deserved individual honour to add to Ireland’s Triple Crown. Baloucoune wasn’t the complete deal – he will have nightmares of that Rhys Carré try for Wales – but he now has a valuable resilience to counter on-pitch setbacks and his weaving run to score against Scotland, his third try in four successive Championship starts, will live in the memory, so potent was its execution. An overnight success at the age of 28.
Richie Murphy: The manner of Ulster’s loss at Ospreys last time out, following on from the previous away defeat to Scarlets, was a painful gut punch for a club looking to rid itself of wobbles on the road. Murphy’s stewardship at the Irish province has been an uplifting rebuild these past two years, but regular setbacks away from home have remained a frustrating wrinkle.
What better way to tackle this than playing a back match on a Six Nations weekend over in Scotland? Ulster trailed 19-7 after half an hour in Edinburgh and then 19-14 when they lost Harry Sheridan to a 46th-minute yellow card that was upgraded to red. That left them poised for yet another wincing away day flop, but their back-to-the-wall reaction on this occasion was inspired, bossing the remainder of the match 28-0 win to 40-19. Now third in the United Rugby Championship table, they are a title prospect to watch in the weeks ahead.
John Dobson: It’s been a horrible few months for the coach with his Stormers blowing themselves out after a thrilling start to the season that had them top of the URC and flying in the Champions Cup. That ‘European’ adventure endured a worrying pool conclusion, and they performed in their three subsequent league games as if on the beach and enjoying too much of the South African summer sun.
That had left them falling down the pecking order in the league table, but they finally managed to staunch the wound with Saturday’s deserved win at the in-form Bulls. Dobson isn’t shy about holding his hands up when he gets things wrong; it was admirable of him to suggest he has perhaps put too much pressure on Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu by giving him the captaincy. With the reset begun by winning in Pretoria, they now have four successive home games (how unfair is that to their rivals, URC organisers?) to drive on and build title-threatening momentum.
The Reds: Knowing that Les Kiss is moving on at the end of the season to take charge of the Wallabies, there was a chance that the Super Rugby Pacific campaign for the Queensland franchise could blow in their face. But there is plenty of ticker still left in the Kiss era, as seen in the dramatic closing minutes of their Australian derby at home to the Waratahs.
The Reds had opened the season with a 12-36 hammering in Sydney last month, but they have since impressively hit back and now have three wins on the bounce. It was a last-gasp Carter Gordon try that grabbed them their post-siren 34-31 win at the Brumbies on March 7 after Filipo Daugunu closed the gap with his 78th minute score, and there was late fireworks again at home to the Waratahs – including another sweetie from Gordon – transforming a 12-17 deficit into a 26-17 win.
Portugal: The outlook was bleak for Os Lobos last July when they were annihilated 106-7 by a scratch Ireland side. Their stunningly entertaining pool stage exploits at the 2023 Rugby World Cup seemed a lifetime away at that stage, but credit to Simon Mannix for the rebound that has happened in recent months, an all-parts rebuild that culminated in Sunday’s stirring Rugby European Championship final success over Georgia in Madrid.
It was 21 years – 2005 – since Portugal had last beaten the Eastern Europeans, who had had a stranglehold on the trophy since 2017. However, their rewired defence refused to roll over despite trailing 3-12 at the break and then 9-17, and this defiance was eventually rewarded by the converted Vincent Pinto that nudged them into a 19-17 lead on 72 minutes that they held on to for a first REC title success in 23 years. Superb.
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COLD AS ICE!
Rugby officialdom: The more you hear the game’s blazers prattle on about making rugby a more accessible sport, the less convinced you become. Saturday night was a shocking case in point. First, the worst kit clash of all time. Whoever thought it was a good idea to allow France and England to wear the kits that they did needs to be pensioned off sharpish. It was a horrible self-inflicted situation that frustratingly took away from what was a fantastic occasion.
Another item in the dock was the money shot – the decision to award France the last-gasp penalty winner. Between the mic’d up officials and TV pundits coining a small fortune for their supposed perils of wisdom, you would expect clarity and have no one left in any doubt as to why the penalty was awarded. Nada. When referee Amashukeli put out his arm to signal an infringement at 80:04, Maro Itoje and Ollie Chessum had both just piled into tackles.
If either was the high tackle penalty, it was harsh. It was much, much later that it emerged that a tackle on 79:37 from Trevor Davison on Joshua Brennan was potentially the culprit, and that TMO Brett Cronan took 25 seconds to get the message through to the tackle-missing Amashukeli. If that was the case (and if it was, it was a hard call also), the referee should have said so, instead of just saying ‘high tackle’ and leaving England fans confused that Itoje or Chessum had tackled high and were being penalised. A title-winning penalty and fans in the dark as to exactly why it was awarded. What farce.
Steve Borthwick: There was a line of patter in the Parisian fallout that England’s ‘near win’ was an outcome that should result in the RFU keeping the beleaguered head coach in his role as contracted through to the 2027 Rugby World Cup. However, the exact opposite should be the reaction. The attack-minded way that the seven-try England played wasn’t part of the Borthwick way. It was an outburst of desperation from a desperate team that had imploded in the Championship – and there should be hard-hitting consequences.
The robotic Borthwick isn’t the sort of personable coach to have ‘fans flooding across the Channel’ to support their team with his dull tactics. Saturday night was a performance out of character with what he prescribes every other game to his team – rugby that doesn’t entertain. When England were on their 12-game winning run, they performed with the handbrake firmly on, so no kudos should go Borthwick’s way for his team scoring 46 points in Paris out of nowhere.
The bottom line was that this was a fourth loss in a row and it left England finishing fifth on the table, matching the historic lows of 2018 and 2021. For a team with so much money pumped in, 2026 was a spectacular failure and the blame game must be decisive, as it was in New Zealand where they quickly got shot of Scott Robertson.
Gregor Townsend: Another coach whose head should roll is the Scotland boss. His stewardship is akin to a remake of the Groundhog Day movie with Townsend playing the role that was acted out by Bill Murray. That film finally ended with Murray breaking the suggested 10-year repeat loop, finally getting the girl and going on to live out his best life in Punxsutawney. The loop that Townsend is caught up in with this frustrating Scotland team doesn’t ever look like ending with him at the helm.
Being in with a final day shout of winning a first Triple Crown in 36 years and a first Championship since 1999 isn’t an achievement that merits bouquets and banquets. The reality was that the Scots blew their moment of truth, losing to Ireland for a 12th successive time and leaving no one satisfied with a third-place finish. Set to face Ireland again at the Rugby World Cup in Perth in October 2027, why prolong this repeat misery with Townsend at the helm? It’s time for the SRU to call it quits and try out something different rather than stick by a coach who has been in charge since 2017.
Georgia: Richard Cockerill appears to have dodged a bullet by getting out of Tbilisi last December, as the upstart Eastern Europeans now appear to be in crisis. It was January 2024 when the ex-England assistant and Leicester boss hooked up with a country looking to take its rugby onto the next level, but they are now in the ha’penny place, no longer Rugby Europe champions and mired by the fallout from Operation Obsidian, the investigation launched in 2023 before Cockerill arrived.
The eventual findings of that case – announced only last week – resulted in six Georgia players and a team official getting sanctioned for doping rule violations in what World Rugby described as “an orchestrated scheme” involving the swapping of urine samples to avoid detection. This major dent to their reputation was followed by Sunday’s loss to Portugal in the REC final in Spain, taking a trophy they have held since 2017. Recent Six Nations tournaments ended with Georgian calls for promotion to the ‘Big Dance’. You won’t hear a peep from them this year.
World Rugby issue statement as Georgia rocked by Anti-Doping sanctions
Italy: You can’t help but like their revival under Gonzalo Quesada, but their aim of winning more games than they lose every year in the Six Nations has again gone unfulfilled despite so much promise being seen. Beating England for the first time was a wonderful achievement, adding to their opening round success over Scotland and then leading Ireland in Dublin at the break.
However, the prospect of winning three matches in the tournament for the first time in a single season was denied by an underwhelming first-half showing in Cardiff. They essentially needed a fallow week, not another match, to come down properly and reset from the high of scalping the English, and it left them vulnerable to a Welsh side determined to make good the promise of their improvements versus Scotland and Ireland. To be fair to the Azzurri, they ‘won’ the closing part of their Round Five match 17-0. But that response came way too late for this year’s fourth best to deny their pent-up, sixth-place hosts a rare win.
Moana Pasifika: Let’s hope the franchise’s backers don’t get twitchy and opt out of supporting a worthy Super Rugby Pacific enterprise. Four losses in succession have drained away the enthusiasm of the Round One victory over Fijian Drua, and the league’s bottom side have a huge task on their hands when welcoming the Crusaders next Saturday.
Down 15-7 at Eden Park, they had a decent first-half platform to work off against the Blues. But the second half proved torturous. Within nine minutes, they had conceded two converted tries to end the contest and the full-time result was eventually 43-7. It’s just not clicking for a side that now has a points difference of -113 five matches into the campaign, and the fear is that the damage can become far worse unless three successive home matches at North Harbour can revive them.