Aristotle's International Round-Up - Read It And Weep.

A WEEKEND of international rugby, so, what did I make of it? In truth, not a lot. In fact, after watching the three Autumn Nations Cup matches, I am more than ever convinced – our game has an image problem.

OK, this list is probably skewed somewhat by me having a dog in the fight, but in order of entertainment, I would go:

1. Scotland v France

2. Wales v Georgia

3. England v Ireland.

Let's take them in reverse order. I thought the England game was 80 minutes of boredom, because, the English set out to throttle the Irish, wait for the mistakes, then penalise them. Full marks to them for the efficiency of their defence and the way they stuck to the script, but, many more performances like that and they will get the game banned.

Entertaining it was not. It was a case of, don't try anything out of the ordinary, don't make a mistake, just wear the opposition down and bore us all to tears. Not for me thank you.

The English media, naturally, will be trying to tell us Jonny May's try was the most-wonderful piece of rugby skill we have ever seen, a try for the ages. For Fuck Sake, it was an old-fashioned kick and rush try, fair play to the lad for pulling it off, but, Rugby Union's core principle is that it is the handling game. “William Webb Ellis, in 1823, with fine disregard for the Laws of the Game of the tiem, picked up the ball and ran with it,” thereby establishing Rugby Football's unique selling point.

He did not kick ahead and win the 80 metres chase for the ball. (Of course, back then, the game's measurements were in good old yards, feet and inches Imperial measure – none of this metric European nonsense.)

Great try my arse. If you're going to measure it against great length of the park English tries, at least old Andy Hancock carried the ball a similar, if not greater distance, to break Scottish hearts in 1965.

Wales v Georgia was a case of two bad teams scrambling for a result, which Wales got. I never expected a great performance from an experimental Welsh side. But, they won, they avoided a banana skin and Wayne Pivac has learned he has some useful emerging talent – and, he can probably allow Alun Wyn Jones to retire with honour.

Finally, our game with France went as I feared it might. If it was up to me – Simon Berghan and Jamie Bhatti would be told: “Thanks guys, but, you are not and never will be international class.” It was a typical Scotland performance, we made too-many mistakes against a superior team and we learned, we still have some way to go before we can trouble the top sides – although, they have to play well to beat us.

Once again, the old Scottish failing of an inability to make things work at the lines out, under pressure and in the red zone, came back to bite us – come on, set pieces are the easiest parts of the game to work on, so, why do we keep messing up here?

However, my biggest concern for the future of Rugby Union Football, based on the three weekend games is – I think the Laws as currently formulated and applied are working against entertaining play. We really must find a way of making the game more of a running spectacle.

At the moment rugby is like an extended game of British Bulldog, with a ball. The defensive line stretched right across the park, looking to stop the attacking line, which repeatedly rushes into contact, then they look to repeat ad nauseum. It does not make for good viewing.

My youngest daughter, who now looks after her dear old Dad, kindly allowed me to share her Amazon Prime TV access for the internationals. This has enabled me to view some of the excellent sports documentaries available on that channel (although, infuriatingly, I cannot get access to the documentary Oceans Apart, about Pacific Islands Rugby).

I enjoyed watching: All or Nothing – a season with the Dallas Cowboys. (Very little about the Cheerleader, but, that was a small quibble.) It was interesting to see the preparation which went into each game – studying video footage, finding patterns of defensive behaviour which could be utilised against opponents and so forth.

The Cowboys go-to offence - sorry, that should be offense in American English – involved Running Back Ezekiel Elliott taking a short pass from Quarter Back Dak Prescott and blitzing his way through the gap in the opposition defensive line opened out by his Offensive Linemen.

Maybe that's the answer to rugby's boring progress from breakdown to breakdown – let's allow blocking, so the ball carrier has a chance of making yardage and moving the ball downfield.

I am not advocating we go to the American Football process of giving the team in possession four downs in which to make ten yards/metres, after which, if they have succeeded, they retain possession, if not they lose the ball. Similarly, I am not advocating we adopt Rugby League's six-pass Law, but, we really have to do something to ease the logjam of repeated pile-ups while a team goes through twenty-odd phases and doesn't get very far upfield.

The scrum, I despair. Quite often over the weekend, we were treated to overhead shots of scrums, which merely served to demonstrate how some props simply refused to push straight – and the TMO, the only guy with the view of what is going on, did not alert the referee.

As an old front five man, I love scrums, but, we really must do something to clean them up at the top level. Interestingly, did anyone else notice, half an hour had gone before we had the first scrum in the Scotland v France game? That was an interesting statistic.

Finally - Scotland now has a couple of weeks in which to re-gather before the third/fourth place play-off, probably against Ireland. That's a game I think we can win.