Dawn of the 6 Nations, pt. 3

With the 6 Nations quite literally around the corner, I wanted to start Route One by talking about each country and some of the possible talking points going into this tournament. I'll place the countries into different posts and I'll save my thoughts on the Round 1 matches for separate posts, and hopefully this doesn't take terribly long. They are arranged in absolutely random order:

England: Certainly one of the favourites to take the title, though really, outside of Scotland and Italy, any of the teams in this competition could make a reasonable claim for that statement. Stuart Lancaster has taken the opportunity in this tournament to introduce even more new blood into the England team, with Henry Thomas, Luther Burrell, Jack Nowell, Anthony Watson and Jonny May set to play some serious minutes. Burrell's is an inspiring story (here), but he is in this team to make a difference and give England the sort of impact runner they lack in the centres with Manu Tuilagi still on the sidelines. The same goes for the other aforementioned rookies, all of whom have earned this ascension into England XV reckoning based on fantastic club form.


The pack is fairly settled, and for me I think one player set to have a big role is Tom Wood, which is a completely unsurprising statement as he has been a real leading light in his short 23 Test career. His ability to provide an additional jumping option allows Billy Vunipola to run in the wide midfield channels off the line-out, and Wood's work at the breakdown and around the field is hard to beat. If Lancaster opts to give Matt Kvesic some game time to develop at Test level (and Lancaster's long term thinking has been geared towards RWC2015 since day 1) then it would not be a surprise to see Wood resume the captaincy that he carried in Argentina. 
A lot of the big, important chatter around the England set up is the Fly-Half role and who will see time at pivot during the tournament, and if George Ford (almost 21) is ready to take the reigns. It is hard to forget that B&I Lion Owen Farrell is only 22, and with 19 Test caps for England is still a relative new-comer, with plenty of time for his game to grow and expand.  I don't have a preference, Farrell looked poor in the Autumn Tests, but the two men outside him, Billy Twelvetrees and Joel Tompkins were equally inadequate, and a Chris Ashton in the midst of a year-long draught of form did not aid matters. 
How England's back-three, Mike Brown and which ever youngsters are picked, do under the high ball will have a big outcome in their first couple games. Teams will want to challenge this area and put a lot of pressure on the wingers, with Scotland and France team that already do a lot of territorial kicking. Brown, Farrell and co will have to make sure their positioning and counter-attack options are set up, and hopefully that will unlock big runners like Vunipola and Burrell in broken play.