The Six Pack is comprised of West Ghana’s Rugby Rain Man Junoir Blaber, England’s Knight of the Realm Jamie Loyd, East Midlands’ Machiavellian Rugger Nick Hall, the infamous Ireland National, Declan Yeats, the Irish-born, Castres-residing, lean(ish), mean(ish) writing machine, James Harrington and contrived Kiwi Co-Host, Johnathan Wicklow Barberie.
TOULOUSE, FRANCE – The first weekend of action has our 6 Nations Six Pack “Experts” feeling good, some more than others. With only 5 weeks of action, it only takes one bad week to make a difference so a strong start for everyone means a lot. To see, let’s get to our 6 Nations Picks Review.
Round 1 was a great opening round for the the tournament. The Wales versus Italy match proved to be much more of a contest than many, (including some of our pundits) expected. Ireland easily dispatching Scotland, once again showed the weakness of the Scottish game. The game that made all the difference in the standings was the France v England game. For 76 minutes it looked like 4 members of the Six Pack would be celebrating a clean sweep only for that to change in the final 4 minutes of the game.
Here is the revised picks spreadsheet with the results of the match-ups. Incorrect predictions are in red.
Yeats: 3-0 with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 1-0. Yeats’ has come out roaring into the the lead. His choices may not be as based on stats and performance measures but his reliance on the old prop’s gut instinct was 100% percent accurate. Declan’s Irish loyalty saw him do well again as the boys in green romped to victory.
Blaber: 3-0, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 1-0. Junoirdamus seems to have gotten his grove back . Calling the French victory was the key break he needed in having a perfect week. Factoring a slow Welsh start and not expecting a big Welsh victory allowed him to get the Pick of the Week right, unlike three members of the panel.
JWB: 2-1, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 1-0. Picking Ireland to win by 10 as his Pick of the Week, was a huge boost to his future prospects. However, he joined the ranks of 2-1 by backing the inexperienced English side to top the French.
Loyd: 2-1, with the shame of getting the Pick of the Week wrong and taking his Pick of the Week record to 0-1. The Englishman’s loyalty cost him as he backed the young England side. He does claim 4th despite falling short on point spread; after all, he did pick the correct side, unlike Hall and Harrington.
Hall: 2-1, with the shame of getting the Pick of the Week wrong and taking his Pick of the Week record to 0-1. Very much like his English compatriot, Mr. Hall‘s backing of the English cost him in the standings. To make matters worse his Pick of the Week was also based on the English and it all went pear shaped for the young man.
Harrington: 2-1, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 0-1. The Castres-residing writing machine, surprised the other members of the six pack by not picking France to win. To be honest, it was probably a key part of the reason most of the staff didn’t. After all, if our French correspondent who covers the Top14 extensively didn’t feel confident, maybe that was worth taking note of. Unfortunately for Mr. Harrington, he is not a fan of picking the easy contest for his Pick of the Week instead opting for the tight matches. Because of his misplaced faith in England to win by 5, he brings up the rear.
1 down and 4 to go. It is still early but there is lot on the line for each member of the RWU Six Pack. Round 2 is coming up fast, so stay tuned!
That’s it for now… feel free to comment below, look for and “Like” our Facebook Rugby Wrap Up Page and follow us on Twitter @: RugbyWrapUp, Junoir Blaber, DJ Eberle, Nick Hall, James Harrington, Cody Kuxmann, Jaime Loyd and Declan Yeats, respectively.
And until the next time… stay low and keep pumping those legs.
