Home advantage still counts in hypercompetitive Six Nations

Jim Renwick was first capped for Scotland in 1972, but he had to wait till 1982 for his first away win in the Five Nations. Scotland beat Wales 34-16 that day, scoring five tries and Renwick got one of them. Scotland had a good team in the early Seventies. Renwick was in the side when they beat Wales at Murrayfield in 1973 and 1975, a considerable achievement in that golden decade of Welsh Rugby. Yet from the time Renwick was first capped until that glorious afternoon in Cardiff, there was only one away victory in the tournament for Scotland – in Dublin in 1976, a match Renwick missed because of injury.

Scotland weren’t alone in finding it difficult to win away. When England won 13-6 in Cardiff in 1963 few of their jubilant supporters can have imagined that twenty-eight years would have slipped by before England won there again.

In theory it should be easier to win away from home now than it was in the amateur days. Foreign fields were far less familiar to players then than they are now. Nevertheless home advantage still counts. One may think that Owen Farrell’s England would not have succumbed to Alun Wyn Jones’s Wales a fortnight ago if the match had been at Twickenham rather than in the Principality Stadium – a reflection that makes England’s victory in Dublin in the first round of the tournament all the more remarkable and praiseworthy.

Actually there have been five other away wins in the first three rounds of this year’s Six Nations; indeed the score is away teams 5, home ones 4. Admittedly, and sadly, two of the home defeats were expected, Italy losing in Rome to both Wales and Ireland. Admittedly too there was more than an element of luck in the narrow Welsh victory in Paris, but that wasn’t the case with England’s win in Dublin or Ireland’s in Edinburgh.

So we come to round four: Scotland v Wales at Murrayfield, England v Italy at Twickenham, Ireland v France at the Aviva Stadium – and it may be that home advantage will tell. Certainly few will give Italy much, if any, chance, at Twickenham, and, though France have, for once , a settled team and come off a good win against Scotland in Paris, victory in Dublin may be beyond them.

Welsh supporters have of course reason to feel confident of beating Scotland, even at Murrayfield. Wales are the only unbeaten side in the tournament. They have been less afflicted by injuries than Scotland – or indeed England and Ireland. They have now won their last twelve matches, and there’s no reason to think that number thirteen will be unlucky for them. They have played a canny, controlled game, eschewing risks, and they play it very skilfully. The former England winger Ugo Monje wrote in his Guardian column that Warren Gatland is right: Wales really have forgotten how to lose. This may of course be true, but another version of the England game might be that Wales snatched victory from defeat only because England forgot how to win.

Scotland have been disappointing. They lost to Ireland because they made mistakes at vital moments, and they were very poor in Paris a fortnight ago. Nevertheless, the Irish game was their first Six Nations defeat at Murrayfield since 2016, and it was arguably self-inflicted. They have suffered more than most from injuries – and are less able to cope with a list of absentees than England, Wales or Ireland. Some of the wounded return, among them Finn Russell who was in sparkling form for Racing 92 last Saturday. The weather forecast may also favour Wales, who are happy to play a narrow game varied by kicks to the wing or up the middle, while Scotland are at their best when they can play at pace and move the ball wide. Still, despite the long Welsh run of victories, better Welsh teams than this one have lost at Murrayfield, quite often really.

The first three rounds have thrown up two interesting questions.

First, how good are England? Having been very impressive against Ireland and France, they were favourites against Wales and indeed many of us wrote that the Grand Slam was England’s for the taking. But they ran out of both ideas and self-belief against Wales, also giving away stupid second-half penalties. Given that they were on top for the first half and still leading at the hour mark, it’s reasonable to say they choked.

What was odder still is that their coach, the loquacious Eddie Jones, may also be thought to have choked. Jones has spoken often of the importance of making good use of replacements; last year he started calling them “finishers”. But where were the “finishers” at Cardiff? The two most capable of changing the pattern of the game – fly-half George Ford and scrum-half Dan Robson – were still where they had been at kick-off: sitting on their backsides on the bench. Bizarre.

My guess is that England in what is now Eddie Jones’s fourth Six Nations in charge are very good indeed when things are going their way and they are securely on top, but somewhat less good at reading the game and adapting to a shifting pattern. In their defence one might say that in truth few teams are actually good at effecting such an adaptation, not even the All Blacks, which is one reason why Ireland have twice beaten them, and why England were unlucky not to do so three months ago.

Second, is Ireland’s indifferent, certainly less than convincing form, a temporary blip or was last year as good as it will get for this Ireland squad?

Given how well Leinster have been doing in the Champions Cup and the Pro14,the former seems more probable. All the same the poor form of their previously controlling halves, Johnny Sexton and Conor Murray, must be worrying. Neither has been near his best, Murray looking slow and – what is strange – indecisive, Sexton showing faulty judgment and , sadly, petulance.

Of course he – like his many admirers – may believe he has been subjected to rather too many, rather too late tackles. This may indeed be the case. On the other hand any fly-half who, like Sexton, is a master at delaying his pass in order to commit opposition defenders is quite often likely to be tackled marginally late, sometimes by an opponent determined not to buy what he thought was going to be an attempted dummy. I don’t think there’s any reason to suppose that Sexton is the victim of more of these marginally late tackles than Finn Russell and George Ford, both, like Sexton, masters of the delayed pass. From what I’ve seen, Russell shrugs off such tackles with a smile, Ford just gets on with the game, Sexton makes a fuss. Substituted in Rome a fortnight ago, he left the field disgruntled, giving voice to what the BBC described as “an expletive-laden rant”.

Ireland started this tournament as hot favourite and as the European team with the best chance at the World Cup in Japan. They don’t look like that now, and one would guess that either Sexton and Murray must find form and restored composure, or they should give way to a younger pairing – Joey Carberry and Luke McGrath, both at present injured after excellent first halves of the season.