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Who’s hot and who’s not!

It’s time for our Monday wrap of who has their name in lights and who’s making the headlines for all the wrong reasons over the past week.

THEY’RE ON FIRE!

Ireland: A third Grand Slam for the Irish and it was fully deserved. They look like the real deal with the Rugby World Cup closing in and if they can replicate this kind of form they are serious contenders to wrestle the crown from the All Blacks. Joe Schmidt now has depth in all areas while his key men are all at the top of their game, with Tadhg Furlong, Conor Murray, Jacob Stockdale et al all in superb form.

Romania: With Belgium beating Spain, Romania qualify for Pool A at Rugby World Cup 2019. Spain will play Portugal, with the winner facing Samoa in a double home/away leg and the winner will qualify as play-off winner in Pool A. Congratulations to Romania for sealing a place.

Waratahs character: Coming off the back of a difficult tour that included a draw against the Sharks in Durban and a defeat to the Jaguares in Buenos Aires, the Waratahs showed plenty of grit to fight back from 22-3 down to win 51-27 against the Rebels, scoring 37 points to the Melbourne side’s seven in a second-half blitz of epic proportions. Now they must bottle this performance and repeat it round after round.

Tommaso Allan: Scoring two tries and creating Matteo Minozzi’s try with a lovely grubber kick, Allan was arguably the player of the final Six Nations weekend along with Ireland tighthead prop Tadhg Furlong and was desperately unlucky to be on the losing side on Saturday. He oozed class against Scotland and despite finishing on one point in the table Allan and Italy can take lots of positives from the campaign.

Reds: Brad Thorn deserves serious credit for how he’s given his side a steeliness in such a short space of time. Their performance at the Jaguares was outstanding as they won the physical battle, something few sides manage against the Argentines. At scrum time they were very good while defensively the hits flew in all game and in attack they also carried hard in victory. This win is their third in four matches.

COLD AS ICE!

Francois Trinh-Duc: The fly-half had a shocker in his side’s defeat to Wales. Firstly, he was at fault for Liam Williams’ try as he badly misjudged the flight of the ball. Then he failed to convert a simple penalty, as well as making a baffling forward pass and also missing touch from a penalty. France eventually replaced the fly-half but to lose by a point has unfortunately resulting in some finger pointing.

England: There we have it then, three successive defeats for Eddie Jones’ England. They have lost to Scotland, France and Ireland as the honeymoon period of Jones’ tenure is well and truly over. A lack of ideas in attack along with dips in form of several players have been highlighted in the press and it’s now a long wait until June when they travel to face the Boks in three Tests. A blip or something more?

Toulon: Third place in the league lost to basement boys Oyonnax on Saturday in a result that will not please Mourad Boudjellal one bit. This huge shock was made worse by Toulouse beating Montpellier on Sunday to climb above Toulon.

Avoidable official mess: Following on from Romania qualifying for Rugby World Cup 2019, there was controversy over the fact a Romanian was refereeing the Belgium vs Spain clash. At full-time several of the Spanish team confronted the referee about his performance, as the video shows, and we can’t help but think any feelings of anger over alleged decisions could have been avoided had a Romanian not been in charge. Understandably there has been plenty of criticism since about the appointment, with the Spanish clearly unhappy.

Video credit: @Basa_jauna

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