MARTIN HANNAN
Football FA Cup, Derby v Manchester United - BT Sport 1 1900; SheBelieves Cup, USA v England - BBC Two 2340. now there are French fans on their way to Scotland.
The SRU and the Scottish Government in consultation with the French Government and the Six Nations should collectively have the courage and call off Sunday’s game now, but I doubt that will happen because there’s too much money at stake – even though there would probably be even more to be earned if the match was postponed and played in late summer or early autumn when hopefully we will see the back of this virus. Mako Vunipola of England has shown responsibility by selfisolating – all rugby unions should do the same.
If the match is to go ahead on Sunday, then Scotland must pick up on the improvement they showed against Italy. The Azzurri did not play particularly well but still troubled Scotland though in the end the victory was comfortable enough.
Had Ali Price’s ‘try’ not been chopped off, we would have been celebrating a bonus-point victory. It would have been deserved because Scotland won all the big personal battles that I wrote about before the game, particularly in the front row where Rory Sutherland was immense and at the breakdown where the likes of Jamie Ritchie and Hamish Watson were quite superb.
Stuart Hogg finally showed what he has to offer as captain and his try was the best of the weekend and probably the best individual effort of the tournament so far.
I’m glad that Finn Russell and Greg Townsend appeared to have agreed on a way forward but I will never stop thinking that if Russell had played in this tournament Scotland might well be sitting as genuine contenders for the Championship.
That being said, I think France will win on Sunday and go on to win the Grand Slam. They have improved with every game and have the best squad in the Six Nations, so they deserve to be champions. But they could get their bubble burst at Murrayfield, which I hope will be the last match of a tournament which is not as important as a single human life.