Six Nations Preview

Adam Hathaway is a freelance rugby journalist who contributes to most of the nationals including The Sunday Times, The News of the World, The Daily Express, The Sun as well as the Sunday Herald in Scotland, the London Paper, Agence France Presse and Rugby World. He has ghosted columns with Will Carling, Dick Best, Richard Hill, Ben Cohen, Dan Luger and Charlie Hodgson amongst others.
He shares his opinion on the Six Nations tournament with us below.

The Six Nations coaches and captains gathered in a posh corner of London recently to be interrogated by the press, but most of them acted as if they were being interviewed for a job with MI5 so tightly did they keep their cards to their chest.

Pulling teeth must be easier but a few things could be divined from the session. Namely Andy Farrell will get a union cap very quickly, France are short of fly-halves, Ireland don't really like being favourites, but everyone else thinks they are, and the movement of Italy's top players to England and France has improved the national side. The Welsh and the Scots are in a play-off for a post in Moscow with the secret services.

This year's Six Nations is wide-open according to the protagonists, and a tournament that should give Betfair customers some good opportunities for trading and the first stop is the fixture list.

At the time of writing England were trading at 5.1 but they have been nibbled at consistently at bigger odds probably by traders who feel they will win their first two games, at home to Scotland and Italy, allowing them to get out before England play Ireland at Croke Park on the third weekend.

With Ireland, France (home) and Wales (away) in the last three rounds it would probably take a win in Dublin to make a really significant dent in their price - unless Ireland have a disaster early on.

England will probably feel the loss of Dan Ward-Smith, out for the thick end of six months, more towards the end of the tournament but, as this is being written before the first games because of the vagaries of publication deadlines, we haven't seen how Martin Corry reacts to the autumn reversals. Last year England had more possession (21 mins 18 secs) than any other side but could not use it.

When the Irish take on France at Croke Park we will see how the French are really going under the sometimes erratic leadership of Bernard Laporte. He is off after the World Cup and has finally managed to pick Sebastien Chabal, Sale's human wrecking ball. Whether Chabal can play his normal game is still in doubt but the match of the centre pairings Brian O'Driscoll and Gordon D'Arcy against Yannick Jauzion and Florian Fritz will be worth watching, bet or no bet. One useful stat for the Irish is that nine of their 12 tries last year came in the second half.

One anorak uncovered the staggering statistic that Laporte that had not played the same combination of players at hooker, number 8, scrum-half, fly-half and full-back in 14 internationals leading up to the tournament, in a World Cup year he is still in the dark about his best team - and he has been in the job for more than seven years.

Italy are no mugs: only last week Brian Ashton claimed that they were the best coached side in the Six Nations last year, but they should not get much change out of England at Twickenham - they might have one eye on Murrayfield on 24 February. Getting involved with Azzuri provides one of the most fascinating trading propositions of the whole Six Nations.

Italy's captain Marco Bortolami told the press that his side would have to start playing for 80 minutes per game rather than their normal 50 or 60 but from a trading point of view that will do for starters. In last year's tournament the Italians led during the second half in four out of their five games. Any team that can stick Bortolami, Martin Castrogiovanni - incredibly on the bench for the French game - Mauro Bergamasco and Sergio Parisse on the same team sheet cannot be written off totally.

On top of that they were level in two matches at half-time, trailing in two at the break (one by a point to England and by three to Scotland) and were up in one, against France who they led 12-8 at the interval. At around 8.6 in the match market they are worth a second look for trading purposes. The draw will probably interest one or two forumites who seem to make a living out of rugby union matches finishing level. You know who you are...

A Wales team shorn of Gareth Thomas for the foreseeable travel to Murrayfield, a place where they have only won twice in the last ten attempts, may fancy their chances to repeat 2005's win with the Scots missing the totemic Jason White.

There are a couple of things to bear in mind. In last year's tournament Wales scored most of their points in the first half, and touched down seven tries in the first 40 minutes of matches compared to two after the break whilst Scotland had the highest ratio of successful kicks at goal in the tournament at 89 per cent.

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