Rugby for the Girls - Wonderful Wales

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Best bit of the evening was our guest speaker. Jason Leonard. How cool is that! (Lizi)

Never missing a chance to chatch up with Ben Cohen - and he remembered me! (Debs).

click through, you will see a side of Simon Shaw, Tom Rees, RFTG fave James Haskell and Danny Cipriani that you may have thought that you would never see. (Lucy)

I then proceeded to hug Lawrence Dallaglio because he gave me a beer, ask Riki Flutey – who is absolutely gorgeous – what moisturiser her used because he smelt yummy, tell James Haskell he too smelt yummy (Kerry)

I mean why would anyone look elsewhere when we have got some of the most attractive players here in the premiership?!?!?
From Leicester, we have Danny Hipkiss; Harry Ellis and esp for Jill: Lewis Moody! (Lucy)

BBC Sport

Wonderful Wales

Wonderful Wales - RBS Six Nations Champions

Six Nations with RFTG Reporter Lucy Smith

The boys in red have given us real treats this six nations and deservedly emerged as 2008 Champions. WELL DONE WALES.

England can hold their heads up, just, after an impressive win against a lack-lustre Ireland.

You would have thought Italy had just won the Championship with their passionate defeat over Scotland who had only the previous week given England a sound spanking.

What a strange but fascinating tournament it has been!!

RFTG Roving Reporter Lucy Smith writes......

So the 6 Nations has finished and there seems to be a sense of anti-climax. Wales won the championship and with it the Grand Slam with a victory over an un-inspired French side. England beat Ireland where both coaches were looking to keep their jobs - although it looking likely that Eddie O'Sullivan will lose his job after the bad showing in the World Cup and in the 6 Nations. Scotland lost to Italy but still managed to avoid the wooden spoon as the Italians failed to score enough points to secure 5th place.

From what I gather, (I was out at lunch with mother - she was paying) the Italians played really well and the Scots, well they played pretty much the same as all tournament. Italians deserved the victory with a last minute drop goal (sound familiar??) to win 23- 20, although they needed to beat the Scots by 5 points to climb above them in the table.

So onto Twickenham where both sides need a much needed boost. I had a vested interest as my dad and brother had managed to get tickets through our local rugby club for the annual rugby booze - up, sorry I mean trip. Also, it gave my hearing chance to recover, as I have mentioned before my Dad gets to involved in the game and starts shouting at the tv. It has to be said that the game didn't start well for the English with Ireland scoring a try in the first 4 minutes and I was fearing the worst. But the England team lead by the awesome defence of Jamie Noon (I could hear the tackles back in the north East) and the quite brilliant Danny Cipriani. The biggest cheer came about as Toby Flood ran off the pitch to be replaced the old maestro, Mr J Wilkinson. It has to be said that Jonny played quite well at inside centre and that the combination of Cipriani and Wilkinson seemed to work quite well so there is a prospect combination for the future. One minor discretion by the young pretender to the throne ( Cipriani) was that he swore on national TV. "the forwards were f***ing awesome". Admittedly, I did paraphrase that. Honestly, what do the BBC expect when they shove a microphone under someone's nose when they are still full of adrenaline and not thinking straight??

Onto Wales v France at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff. To begin with, it was very even and there was nothing to choose between the 2 sides. It seemed that the French seemed to drift off and not really want to do much. Going into this game, if Wales were to beat France by more than 3 points (I think) England would finish second which duly happened. So now Wales are the 6 Nations champions - who would have thought it after the start to their 6 Nations campaign.

Wales: they played well at times and showed what class they have in the backs. They had a shaky first half against England at Twickenham but showed a great backs to the wall effort to get the win.

Ireland: had a bad 6 Nations campaign. They left the rally against the French too late and didn't play well against the other teams. I think that Eddie O' Sulliavan will be out of a job sometime soon.

France: You have to give the French coach credit for choosing such a young team against most of the other sides. This was the complete opposite to Brian Ashton. I still don't understand why he went into the England game without a recognised goal kicker. (must have been the wine)

Italy: Played well and showed great promise (especially against England and Scotland). They had tightened up their game and were not giving away the stupid penalties that they were known for. The fitness levels have also increased.

Scotland: Bad tournament, the only good thing that happened was that they beat England in the rain at Murrayfield. That's about it.

England: A frustrating mixed bag of a tournament. Played well for the first 60 minutes against Wales, then threw it away in the last 20 minutes. Played well for the first half against Italy and then almost gave it away. Produced an exceptional performance against France in France (although we did revert to how we played in the World Cup) Then came the worst game: Scotland. There didn't seem to be any cohesion, no plan A let alone a plan B, then they managed to produce a better game against the Irish.

I think for England to move forward they need to do the following but please bear in mind that I'm no expert just an armchair fan:
* Pick players on form (James Simpson-Daniel and Josh Lewsey) rather than on name or the fact that you used to teach them at school *cough Iain Balshaw cough*
* Get Martin Johnson involved - he's admitted that the reason he distanced himself in the previous occasions was that he was never asked. Ask him!!!!
* Let the fast men use their talents rather than have the forwards going from one ruck to another and one rolling maul to another - more entertaining for the fans and who knows we may actually score tries!!!
* Try teaching Iain Balshaw to catch high balls and get the Volcano to keep hold of the ball in contact. Cheap shot I know but as one of te jobs of the international fullback is to catch high balls it would be nice if Iain catches them or least gets in the same postcode. With regards the Volcano, well, an winger at any level, including international, have to keep hold of the ball for it to be useful to your side. There is no point in keeping them there if you know of people (grandparents and younger siblings) who could do the job better!!!!!

Thanks Lucy! To celebrate the Welsh victory and to give credit to the 'f***ing awesome' Jamie Noon, we have got hold of a couple of pictures for you to enjoy - The gorgeous Mike Phillips and our Jamie in action. Until 6 Nations 2009 - Tara!