Six Nations prediction fun and games

What it says on the tin really ,lets take a risk a back whom will win it, who will wooden spoon ,Top try scorer ,biggest villain ,most yellow cards ,top points scorer etc etc etc.... you get the point.
So in about 9 weeks we can look back and hail any correct predictions as genius and the incorrect as better luck next year.

England to come 2nd. The rest I couldn't possibly predict

A few predictions from me - some more sensible than others
Least points conceded - Wales
Most turnovers and interceptions gained - Scotland
Most turnovers / interceptions conceded - Scotland
Most yellow cards - England / Scotland. England for foul play, Scotland for killing mauls / flopping on the ball at rucks
Most points conceded - Scotland / Italy ( Scotland will score a lot more than Italy tho)
Most kicks from hand - Wales
Best groomed - Scotland ( had to think of something positive we would win)
Best innocent look by a forward when caught out cheating- Ireland

Special award for losing games they should have won - Scotland - we are the experts

No grand slam - 6N winner decided on points difference

Least Points conceded Wales, least tries scored Wales

Gatland and Jones will throw some cheap shots at one another

Vern Cotter will not smile for the entire tournament

France will score at least one try in every match

Ireland will not score a try in each game they win but will score a try in each game they lose.. no logical idea why

Parisse will score every point in at least one of Italy's games

Hartley will get red carded at some point

Biggar will add a new dance move to his kicking routine

Top try scorer, Gael Fickou

Top points scorer, Dan Biggar

Try of the tournament, WP Nel

Most controversial game, Wales vs Ireland

Surely some of these will pan out!

Gwlad wrote:England to come 2nd. The rest I couldn't possibly predict

re England to come second the rest i couldnt predict.


So not predicting Wales for the Grand slam eh Gwalad?

Put this on another thread that got locked

Looking at the Bookmakers odds (odds checker) to win the championship, they have
England a good bit ahead as favs (2.75 or 34.4% chance of winning it),
Wales and Ireland equal (4.33 or 23.1%),
France a bit off (7 or 14.3%),
Scotland a good bit down (17 or 5.9%),
Italy way off (1001 or 0.1%)

Taking into account weights of Money (where if lots of money goes on something the smaller the odds are pushed, no matter what the bookies number crunchers think).

% of market bets are put on
England 37.55%
Scotland 31.19%
Wales 13.69%
Ireland 8.45%
France 7.78%
Italy 1.35%

therefore to try and work out the true probablities England's odds should be pushed a bit bigger, Scotland's was well (or are astute people backing the value on them?) Ireland move to slightly lower odds than Wales, and Frances odds shorten

Therefore I make true odds something like

England 31.4% (chance of winning it)
Ireland 24.1%
Wales 23.1%
France 17.3%
Scotland 4.9%
Italy 0.1%

Just saw this quote
Scotland can win Six Nations - Glasgow's Zander Fagerson
I think they might have missed 2 words out. I think Wooden Spoon should follow Six Nations.

I am sure Scotland will do better than that, but given a choice between winning or wooden spoon my head says wooden spoon is the more likely.

tazfalklands wrote:Just saw this quote
Scotland can win Six Nations - Glasgow's Zander Fagerson
I think they might have missed 2 words out. I think Wooden Spoon should follow Six Nations.

I am sure Scotland will do better than that, but given a choice between winning or wooden spoon my head says wooden spoon is the more likely.

to be honest I don't think either are likely. I think Scotland can and will win 2 games this year.

majesticimperialman wrote:

Gwlad wrote:England to come 2nd. The rest I couldn't possibly predict

re England to come second  the rest i couldnt predict.


So not predicting Wales for the Grand slam eh Gwalad?

I refer the honorable member to my previous answer.

bedfordwelsh wrote:Least Points conceded Wales, least tries scored Wales

Bold prediction, has there ever been a tournament where we have scored the least tries?

bsando wrote:Most controversial game, Wales vs Ireland

I like this.

mikey_dragon wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Least Points conceded Wales, least tries scored Wales

Bold prediction, has there ever been a tournament where we have scored the least tries?

NO idea. :-)

Wales for Grand slam, Ireland for wooden spoon.

mikey_dragon wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Least Points conceded Wales, least tries scored Wales

Bold prediction, has there ever been a tournament where we have scored the least tries?

Yep, in 2000.

Also, in 2007 Wales were joint bottom try scorers with Scotland and in 2011 joint bottom with Scotland and Italy.

So, 3 times.

You did ask!

Think the table will look like this

Wales 8 (winners)
England 8
Scotland 6
Ireland 4
France 4
Italy 0

Wales to win as they have Italy at home and will crank up the points on the last day whereas England will have a tricky away fixture in France and away in Italy minimising their cricket score on them.
I fancy Scotland to beat England, France and Italy but lose to Wales and Ireland. Ireland I think will suffer most of all. Mixture of retirements, injuries and form of players will I reckon make for a difficult championship.
England will lose to Scotland on the first weekend, beat Wales and Ireland at Twickenham and sneak past France (who will lose interest in the championship as they rake up loses to Scotland and Wales).

Cyril wrote:

mikey_dragon wrote:

bedfordwelsh wrote:Least Points conceded Wales, least tries scored Wales

Bold prediction, has there ever been a tournament where we have scored the least tries?

Yep, in 2000.

Also, in 2007 Wales were joint bottom try scorers with Scotland and in 2011 joint bottom with Scotland and Italy.

So, 3 times.

You did ask!

You're right I did ask. Cheers for letting me know!

Still a bold prediction though. Our team now is leagues better than the guff we had available in 2000. 2007 to a lesser extent, however we appointed someone who would turn out to be one of the worst Wales coaches we've ever seen. Join bottom might be pushing it to extremes, but I'll accept your point.

fa0019 wrote:Think the table will look like this

Wales 8 (winners)
England 8
Scotland 6
Ireland 4
France 4
Italy 0

Wales to win as they have Italy at home and will crank up the points on the last day whereas England will have a tricky away fixture in France and away in Italy minimising their cricket score on them.
I fancy Scotland to beat England, France and Italy but lose to Wales and Ireland. Ireland I think will suffer most of all. Mixture of retirements, injuries and form of players will I reckon make for a difficult championship.
England will lose to Scotland on the first weekend, beat Wales and Ireland at Twickenham and sneak past France (who will lose interest in the championship as they rake up loses to Scotland and Wales).

That very much depends, we often allow Italy to drag us into a game where both sets of forwards try and strangle each other. We've always come out on top but they ain't pretty to watch.

It also relies on the ref to penalise Italy for repeated scrum infringements. See the 2015 6 Nations game where we had to make substitutions to be able to actually point it out, you know what happened in the second half after that. The world cup warm-up was a tight affair and went as I expected in part thanks to Garces.

Mickey - my point - whilst I accept being bold at best - is that Wales have a very strong defense and play a very risk averse game - so likely to score the least truies because they do not risk much in attack but also conceed the least tries as a flip side of this.  Wales don't try to attack from their own half - so less chance of being turned over for tries but equally they will create less scoring chances. Its also supposed to be a fun thread

TJ wrote:
Best groomed - Scotland

Anyone want to take this on?  Scotland  are by far the best looking and best groomed team - look we have a bunch of MFLs in the side even if the average beauty is brought down by some of the great unwashed from the west

TJ wrote:Mickey - my point - whilst I accept being bold at best - is that Wales have a very strong defense and play a very risk averse game - so likely to score the least truies because they do not risk much in attack but also conceed the least tries as a flip side of this.  Wales don't try to attack from their own half - so less chance of being turned over for tries but equally they will create less scoring chances

Yes that's all correct. It's not so bold given it is how we play for the majority of each match. We'd probably play that way for the full 80 against teams like Ireland; saying that I wish we hadn't played that way for the full 80 against SA...

I was responding to Bedford btw, not your predictions. And whilst we might create less try-scoring opportunities for ourselves I do not believe that we'll be the lowest try scorers in the upcoming tournament. That will almost certainly be Italy. I would expect Wales not to far off the highest like in recent seasons.

I would imagine that the lowest try scorers would be Scotland (based on past performances) or Ireland (based on Schmidt's anti-rugby gameplan).

Having said that, if Scotland ever do get it together, they are capable of scoring tries.

wickedwasp wrote:I would imagine that the lowest try scorers would be Scotland (based on past performances) or Ireland (based on Schmidt's anti-rugby gameplan).

Having said that, if Scotland ever do get it together, they are capable of scoring tries.

Last year or two we have been scoring plenty of tries. Just letting in even more. IIRC We scored more tries against Aus than either Wales or England in the WC and more in the last 6N than in the previous few put together

I think Ashton will score the most trys.
I think England will win it being world champs will really help with experience.
Scotland for wooden spoon.
Top points Farrell.

So seeing as we were discussing tries scored I thought I would have a look.  Better than relying on my tartan tinted glasses - lets have some hard info which rather belies my post above. Perhaps the fact we actually scored some after previously being unable to turned some into loads in my mind

Last 6 nations Scored / conceded
England 18 /11
Wales 13 /7
France 9/9
Ireland 8 /3
Italy 8/19
Scotland 6/12

Not how I thought it was going to come out but skewed by the amazing france / england ( 7 tries to England / five to France) game and Wales demolition of Italy ( eight tries) Looks like ireland might be the best bet to score the least and concede the least

World cup shows a different story - but of course we did not all play the same teams and folk will argue the England Wales group was much tougher


Ireland 18
Scotland 17
England 16
France 13
Wales 12
Italy    7

Against Aus
England scored one try and conceded 3
Scotland scored 3 and conceded 5
Wales scored none and conceded none

so what conclusions can I bring from all this:
tartan tinted glasses make a few tries into loads
Wales win games without scoring many tries but when they do dominate teams they can score plenty
Ireland might well be the bet for least scored / least conceded

Now all I need to do is cherrypick a few stats to prove my points

Looking at the warm-ups, after the 6 Nations and before the RWC, and then the world cup you can argue that Scotland have been scoring tries. I think they scored 2 against Ireland? And in the return fixture against Italy the azzuri were thrashed. I'm also willing to guess that 17 tries in world cup 2015 were plenty more than what Scotland scored in 2011. So for Scotland it can perhaps be deduced that they are improving which will hopefully carry on into this year's 6 Nations.

Most fighty: England
Most annoying: France
Most disappointing: Italy
Most Nerve making: Wales
Most out to prove a point: Scotland
Most pressure: Ireland

No team will stop the English Wolf Pack from getting the Slam again.