Loose Pass: Adam Jones’ ‘sheer dispair’, the ‘tooth-grinding racket’ and Six Nations Awards
Loose Pass is here to delve into the major talking points in the sport.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with the highlights and lowlights of an enthralling Six Nations and a moment of pure chaos…
Sort that one out
Nic Berry often does not get the kindest side of observers, nor does he seem to find the easy smooth games to referee.
Saturday’s Six Nations encounter in Cardiff was about as close to smooth and easy as it gets for most of the last hour, but on about 20 minutes there was an incident which had even the TMO contradicting himself and Nigel Owens close – not actually there but close – to being lost for words.
Nobody Welsh ought to suffer the delusion that Blair Murray’s non-try might have made a difference to the result, but it did start a five-minute spell in which Wales saw a huge momentum shift and left them staring up a far steeper slope than might have been the case.
An English ball goes high, high up into the air. Elliot Daly and the impressive Murray both jump for it. The ball touches Daly’s hand, diverting it away from Murray’s breadbasket and onto his noggin, with enough force to cause it to bounce a good 10m forward.
It’s already chaos, never mind that the ball then falls between Tomos Williams and Tom Curry with Murray marauding forward. The former two collide while going for the ball, leaving Murray to pick it up and scorch away for what would have been the equalising try.
It’s desperately unlucky. Curry goes for the ball; had he claimed it, Williams would have had him wrapped up in a tackle. As it is, Williams lets go when he notices Curry not claiming it (he is possibly sniffing a lucky try too), while Murray initially tried to tackle Curry at the same time. A wicked bounce of the rugby ball is responsible for Murray’s subsequent break; a round ball would have ended up being cradled lovingly by Alex Mitchell.
Some Welsh fans grumbled a lot, insisting Williams was either not offside because Murray did not knock on, or because it was not from a ruck situation.
🦁 Eddie Jones: Andy Farrell’s ‘Aston Martin’ was my Vauxhall Viva and is one of six ‘glue players’
But the law is clear here: a player is in an offside position if that player is further forward (nearer to the opponents’ goal-line) than the team-mate who is carrying the ball or the team-mate who last played the ball. Being in an offside position is not, in itself, an offence, but an offside player may not take part in the game until they are onside again.
Williams was offside because he was in front of Murray when the latter played the ball. And played does include the ball rebounding from the head, however unintentional. A horrible piece of luck, compounded by the subsequent scrum penalty against Wales and a second English try two minutes later. But well-called by Nic Berry, despite his TMO also – briefly – getting it wrong during the review process!
🏆 Six Nations: Cast your vote for the Readers’ Team of the Tournament
Moments and markers of the tournament
Image of the tournament: Adam Jones is a great chap who struts about proudly with his heart on his sleeve. The look on his face, as he watched aghast while England ran in their tenth try in the final moments, encapsulated the emotions of a nation, as worn by one of its finest servants. Sheer despair. If for nothing else, just out of empathy for him, you hope this is the lowest Welsh point in the current journey.
Dream moment of the tournament: Henry Pollock did his best to claim this one with all his high fives and whoops of joy for just getting onto the pitch, never mind picking off a brace of tries. But Italy might go down as one of the best fifth-placed teams ever, with Ross Vintcent’s outpacing of three of England’s back-line for his try at Twickenham the pick of a long Italian highlight reel.
Ripensando a questa meta.
ft. Ange Capuozzo & Ross Vintcent 🇮🇹#GuinnessM6N @Federugby pic.twitter.com/UnTzhmtqks
— Guinness Sei Nazioni (@SeiNazioniRugby) March 9, 2025
Player of the tournament: Impossible to look past Louis Bielle-Biarrey. Eight tries in five games is a new record, but his work-rate should not be forgotten just because he finishes a lot of tries. He clears up kicks, and follows moves around to the other side. The youngster with the longest thighs in world rugby is coming into his prime and could be one of the all-time greats.
Trend of the tournament : That one where teams consist almost entirely of forwards by the end of the match. Oscar Jegou and Bean Earl in the centres. Of the 48 substitutes named on the final day, 35 were forwards. It’s not a game for all shapes and sizes any more.
Aberration of the tournament: The Irish anthem in Rome. Not her fault, she’s got a fine voice, but stadium tannoys do not carry the sound properly. An ear-shrivelling, tooth-grinding racket.
Good news of the tournament: That it’s staying shared between the Beeb and ITV. Rugby suffers enough from being behind paywalls and over-covered by satellite channels, with anti-social kick-off times and extra nights on already-expensive weekends now stock-standard. But at least now Dads and sons can watch from the sofa for free and enjoy the magic together; it’s what convinced your correspondent that playing the game might be a good idea in the first place.
Rivalry of the tournament: For all the prevailing anti-English sentiment encapsulated to tidily in that‚ banned BBC ad‘, future France v Ireland clashes have the potential for grudges all over the place for a few years to come.
Hints of the future: Ireland looking aged and ragged in the final fortnight at senior level, while their U20 side finished rock bottom of that championship. Meanwhile, Wales finished rock bottom of the senior championship, but Wales U20 capped a fine tournament by seeing off England and denying them both the Grand Slam and the title…
