Ok, so the second round of matches have been played, but let's start from the beginning and give a very brief outline of how the first round matches panned out:
The first game of the Championship saw England travel to Cardiff where they totally outplayed a very average looking Welsh team with Chris Ashton scoring two well taken tries. Wales fought hard but were never really in the game and didn't look like posing a serious threat to the eventual outcome.
Ireland travelled to Rome to face a steadily improving Italian team under the guidance of South African coach Nick Mallett. Ireland started the game in their usual fashion (one hundred miles an hour) and could have scored on a number of occasions early on. The usually rock solid Gordon Darcy was having a very rare 'off day' dropping several passes and missing some easy tackles to let the Italians off the hook. The Italians kept on plugging away and eventually took the lead with a well worked try late on in the game, but, yet again, Ronan O'Gara came to Irelands rescue with a dropped goal to steal the game from the Italians. How many times has he saved Ireland that way? (any statos out there please feel free to enlighten us)
Scottish supporters donned their berrets and followed their team to Paris as they prepared to take on the French national team. The French team with their juggernaut pack and silky backline started to take control of the game, but the Scots would not lay down scoring three tries as they fought to stay in the game. In the end the French were too powerful and had too much creativity behind the scrum as they left the Scottish team trailing in their wake.
I'll update with the round two outline shortly....
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