As we do after a major tournament, we review the state of affairs in each of the competing nations.
Click on each nation for a full review.
France
A Wooden Spoon - France's first in the six-team era and only their second in 44 years - has resulted critics of the pre-tournament favourites calling, in vain, for Philippe Saint-André's head.
Ireland
Ireland opened their campaign with such promise that after 43 minutes against Wales many considered them contenders for the title. Unfortunately, that opening period was as good as it got.
Italy
Success! At long last, Italy have managed to back up claiming one big scalp with another. The result? Their best Six Nations to date.
Scotland
Scottish supporters would have been forgiven for biting your hand off if offered the option of a third-placed finish in the Six Nations.
England
You're only as good as your last game is a notion that has been dug up over how this English team's campaign has panned out. Harsh? Maybe.
Wales
It's hard to believe that a few weeks ago the Welsh public were baying for Rob Howley's blood, on the back end of an eight-game losing streak and that had crushed all confidence.
2013 Six Nations statistics
The best individual performers and the head-to-head numbers from the fifth and final round.
Comments
kybone says...
worldwary- I wasn't arguing that the 6N this year was of a higher standard than the RC, just that it provided more of a contest. Yes the rugby in the RC was more exciting, but the conditions were infinitely better. The only interesting thing about last years RC the battle for second and the wait to see if the Pumas could win a game.
A higher standard of game doesn't automatically mean that it is more rigorous on the body and, lets be fair, the Super15 consists of about half the number of games that we play in our club season in Europe.
Posted 18:54 13th April 2013
worldwary says...
kybone
Nice rant but what's your point? Why is a 'competitive' championship of equal strength teams inherently better? Apart from that its a simplistic argument, by your logic if England had beat Wales (1 game) the the 6Ns was a snorefest.
If a strong team takes a title playing good rugby then what's the problem? You can quote your point stats etc but game for game the RC was considerably more exciting than the 6Ns this time. Only the opening week and 2 games from the last week provided anything of substance.
Quite apart from that you can't even compare the 2 tournaments, its Apples & Oranges. The RC is the toughest annual international competition, played by the best nations by quite some distance, with higher travel demands and less recovery. The 6Ns is a close knit tournament, with less demands on the body, played between the worlds 2nd tier teams.
The level and rigors of the 6Ns just aren't on par with the RC...by any yardstick you care to mention!
Posted 04:43 10th April 2013
kybone says...
Rustytrumpet- Why would anyone complain about being too young after winning? I think all people are suggesting is that England have a young team of inexperienced players who had never been in the position that they found themselves in last weekend. Hopefully they'll take it, learn, and be better for it. The England team team that went on win the World Cup lost a few 6N deciders before their successes.
Lots of the games did lack tries this year, but just look at the conditions for a lot of them. The pitch's in Dublin and Paris were a joke. For any SH fans that think they're gonna have a sly swipe at the 6N- at least it was a competitve championship where almost anyone could have beaten anyone on their day. Unlike the last installment of the Rugby Championship where NZ simply breezed to the title. NZ finsihed with 26 points after winning all 6 games, the other three only managed 28 points between them! How magnificently exciting it must be to have such a forgone conclusion as your annual competition. Added to that, the average number of points that a team scored in this 6N was 17.8, the average number of points that a team score in the last RC was 19.9- hardly galaxies apart, and to be fair, the RC points scored is propped up in quite a substantial way by NZ. If you take out the top team from each (NZ and Wales), the average points scored is 16.7 in the RC, and 16.5 in the 6N! Interesting, wouldn't you agree GCP_jones?
Posted 10:57 24th March 2013
couchpotato says...
There seems to be people looking through red rose tinted glasses on here. An assumption that England will improve while other teams stand still. Young or not, inexperienced or not, a number of the England squad have probably peaked (Does Tuilagi have another dimension to find?). And just because Lancaster brought decency and common sense to a shambles is he necessarily the man to take you forward to the glory that is rightly yours. Yes, Engand will probably be a better team in two years time but, provided they avoid the usual tribal implosion so will Wales.
Posted 14:57 23rd March 2013
LondonWasp says...
Rusty trumpet
Wales caps 600
England caps 300
so yes, england ARE a younger team
Posted 13:12 23rd March 2013
Rustytrumpet says...
Im a bit fed up of people giving the excuse that England lost because they are a team full of young players. Granted they are inexperienced, no one complained they were too young when they beat the all blacks did they !
Yes Wales are more experienced, but here's one for you England's average age is 25.8 years, Wales average age is 25.9 years.
So please stop blaming Englands loss on this, All the players have been playing at a high standard of club rugby for years. Just take it and move on.
Posted 12:17 22nd March 2013
melkdave says...
part 2
As i said in part 1 Ireland have been mismanged,The IRFU and management have been just looking at the short term,and next game.They like England after 2003 are gulity of holding onto the golen generation for to long,and have now found themselves with no experianced players to take their place in the team.The one saving grace is a bit like Wales 2 years ago ,there is a crop of very talanted youngsters in the wings ready to leap into the breach.Which may just save irish rugby longterm.There will however be pain in the short term ,that unfortunatly cant be avoided.
Posted 23:37 21st March 2013
melkdave says...
Once again congraulations to Wales for being champions,but one good game in the last 12 isnt really a very good return.Yes they are now a confident team again ,after voctory over England ,but England although an improving side.Are not atm the powerhouse ,they will hopefully become, They are a young and very unexperianced side with potential and are still quite aways from being the finished article.Wales have to back up their championship victory with regular victories over the biig 3 SH teams ,Lets remember they did lose to Samoa and Argentina this year aswell and still have to prove themselves imo.As for France ,well what a mess their game is atm,PSA is a kicking, very structured style of coach,much as was Laporte.French players just dont seem to be able to play that way successfuly,maybe its the culture or the massive amount of imports ,who can play structured rugby for the clubs,,and hide that fact The simple fact is the clubs in France just dont care about the national teams success,that has to strat to change ,or the national team will decline even further.Italy imo,have been a trifel unlucky this year,even if its their best tourament for years.Really they should have beaten Scotland ,as they outplayed them ,much as Ireland did,They made sloppy misakes though,and gave Scotland 2 soft tries ,and then turned what should have been a certain Italy try, into a Scotland one..Once again though they have improved except for Castro,his game just fell apart ,and he was a liability imo.Scotland finished higher than they have for years in the log,but in realatity i dont think they improved much,yes they now can score tries.But their ball retention was bad ,and they seem to have lost the ability to go though the phases.Still alot of things need fixing north of the border im afaraid.We now ccome to Ireland ,who imo,have been mismanaged (more in part 2 lol)
Posted 23:31 21st March 2013
spike19 says...
Overall it was a poor championship from an entertainment point of view. The first weekend was promising with 16 tries scored and plenty of drama. In the following rounds the 6 teams only managed a further 21 tries in 12 games a total of 37 tries scored making the 2013 tournament the lowest scoring since before the game went pro in 1995!
It is certain that the influence of defensive gurus such as Andy Farrell, Saun Edwards and Dean Ryan was bought to bare on championship this year and not necessarily for the good. Its no coincidence that the top three teams Wales, England and Scotland operated a smothering rush/drift defence strategy in most of their games and preferred especially in Scotland's case to let the opposition have the majority of possession.
Italy, France and Ireland on the other hand were unable to make the most of their purple patches and long periods of possession particularly in Ireland's case who topped the possession stats against England and Scotland but were unable to execute in the red zone.
We must hope that next year the focus changes to a more offensive approach with less burgeoning and more finesse especially in the backline. Wesley Fofana is a shining beacon in this regard with his tremendous lines of running, swerving and stepping his way through the heavy traffic. Luke Marshall, Craig Gilroy and Simon Zebo all have that Xfactor that will surely make Ireland contenders next year.
Posted 16:22 21st March 2013
GCP_jones says...
2013 6 Nations Review,
Excellent opening weekend, then 2 great matches after that.Not a good advertisement for Test Rugby.
Congrats to Wales Deserving Champions, and honourable mention must go to Italy.
End of Review
Posted 15:34 21st March 2013