RUGBY: Six Nations Championship

The 2001 Six Nations championship opens this weekend and before a ball has even been kicked it promises to be an interesting competition.

Based on its trifecta of wins late last year against World Champions Australia, Argentina and South Africa, England deserves early favoritism. The English will be hoping the momentum from those three victories will still be with them when they tackle Wales on Saturday at Millennium Stadium, although the Welsh will be no pushovers.

Wales finished off 2000 in pretty good form themselves with comprehensive wins over the USA and Manu Samoa, before dropping a close decision to South Africa in their final match of the year.

Martin Johnson, fresh from a suspension, will lead a pumped up England side that has finally begun to believe in itself and to believe that it can win the big games.

The other opening round match on Saturday sees Ireland take on Italy in Rome. The Irish have been steadily improving under the stewardship of Warren Gatland and shouldn’t be discounted. Ireland put up a good performance before losing to the Springboks in its final hit out of 2000. In that game the Irish were tied with South Africa near the end before a late penalty goal set the Boks on their way to victory.

The Italians had a mixed finale to the 2000 season losing to Canada, beating Romania and then going down heavily to the All Blacks. Italy has also been bothered by political infighting of late and only time will tell if that will have a telling effect on the Azzuri.

On Sunday Scotland will be trying to avoid a repeat of last year’s disastrous start, when it lost to championship newcomers Italy at Murrayfield, as it opens its campaign against France in Paris. The Scottish always seem to wear the tag of ‘the quiet achievers’ because they’re rarely tipped to be a threat, yet they very often take home all the marbles.

Towards the end of last year the Scots comfortably dispatched the touring Eagles and Samoans and fared reasonably well against the Wallabies even though eventually they were on the wrong end of the scoreline.

The French on the other hand are best known for their unpredictability. They can be either very hot, or not and opposing teams never know which tricolors side is going to show up on the day. France lost to Australia and split its two test series with New Zealand at the end of 2000, but those results will be of little significance to anyone trying to predict what’s likely to happen in this year’s Six Nations.

Predictions for the first round: England, France and Ireland to win.