Wooden Spoon Here We Come

OK - I think I have just about calmed down and can now reflect on the first weekend of Six Nations 2012 without, every five seconds screaming: "Dan Fucking Parks must go". So, where do I see us finishing-up come mid-March? Sadly the answer to that is: Wooden spoon again.

Quite simply, we've forgotten how to score tries and until we re-learn this seemingly lost art, we are going nowhere. We might, dependant on which French team turn up, win our only other home game, but, win in Cardiff and Dublin - no chance; win in Rome - I doubt it very much.

So, what do we do? We could always bring in the kids - Stuart Hogg, Duncan Weir and so on and at the same time be honest with the public - announce clearly, mean it and stick to it - these kids will play, even if they mess-up badly, they will be given this season to try to gel and take us forward. We are playing the long game towards 2015, we will lose as many as we win, but, by then we will be competitive.

Such honesty might work.

DOES the IRB really care about rugby? I ask because, after the weekend, I am more-concerned than ever about the governing body's attitude to refereeing and the correct implementation of the laws. Take the two dump tackles in the Ireland v Wales game; to me both were red card offences and if the man the Sheep Worriers still refer to as: "That English bar steward Barnes" couldn't see that - then he's an even worse referee than the useless bar steward I had him down as.

One other wee thing - I won't go on about the crooked scrum feeds and the mess which is the set scrum in general, clearly the High Command has told Field Marshal O'Brien and his men to ignore proper stewardship of such areas - when is a referee going to do something about the cheap shot after a try is scored?

In Dublin, Jonathan Davies went over for a superb Welsh try, one produced by that marvellous "Toony Flip" from George North to the scorer (to digress, why cannot Toony teach a couple of Scottish three-quarters to do this?) but, as he touched down, one of the Irish back row clipped him as he dived.

Now Davies had already covered some ten yards inside the in-goal area, he was merely getting as close as possible to the posts; the Irish guy went in feet-first, there was no effort to tackle Davies into touch-in-goal, it was a cynical cheap shot. Why didn't Barnes pull him up? Red card, at the very least a yellow - re-start with a penalty to Wales from half-way.

A couple of such decisions and this obscenity would soon stop.

Mind you, Barnes might possibly have, once the TMO ruled: "no try", given Scotland the penalty which they didn't get after Greig Laidlaw was denied his Murrayfield "try" - George Clancy was never going to give Scotland that one.

I told an English friend they would win at Murrayfield, since Scotland would butcher umpteen line breaks - which we did. But, I sensed England would win, because Clancy was the referee.