England will have to fly to overtake runaway favourites France and Ireland in the impending Guinness Six Nations, says Owain Jones, as he sizes up the key players who could change their team’s fate.
The Six Nations is nearly upon us, but it’s not just any year. Whisper it in reverential tones: it’s a Lions year. Every individual performance from a home-nations player will be scrutinised and dissected with a scalpel, as partisan fans resolutely back their boys to book boarding passes on a flight to Australia in late June. The tour, played on a quadrennial basis, adds a frisson of excitement to this august, 142-year-old tournament.
England, perennial underachievers since their solitary World Cup win in 2003, with one Grand Slam in 2016, are once again in a period of transition, with a new captain in the princely form of Maro Itoje. The Saracen has been backed to galvanise a misfiring side and coach Steve Borthwick’s men will be buoyed by the return of Alex Mitchell at scrum-half, coupled with crowd-favourite Marcus Smith, who is expected to sizzle from either fly-half or full-back. Realistically, there is much work to do to catch runaway favourites France and Ireland.
Les Bleus have the world’s best player Antoine Dupont back from his Olympic gold-winning sojourn, believing that anything is possible. With the achingly cool Romain Ntamack also back in the saddle, it is an irresistible combination given a platform to thrive by enforcers Uini Atonio and Emmanuel Meafou — all 45 stone of them.
Expected to wrestle with them for the Grand Slam are Ireland, whose head coach Andy Farrell is on Lions duty, leaving his deputy Simon Easterby tasked with the unenviable challenge of matching sky-high Irish expectations.
The dark horses must be Scotland, who haven’t won a tournament since 1999, but who boast a settled side and a sprinkling of stardust with Finn Russell, Duhan van der Merwe and Huw Jones presenting a bonny triumvirate. If they can get over their Ireland hex, it could be their year.
The battle for the wooden spoon promises to be settled in Rome, as a sorry Welsh side — which lost all 12 Tests of 2024 — scrap with Italy to avoid the ignominy of a second consecutive bottom-placed finish.
Here, we take a look at some of the players to keep an eye on as difference-makers in this year’s tournament
England’s star in the making: Chandler Cunningham-South
England’s tough-tackling Chandler Cunningham-Smith. Credit: Mike Hewitt via Getty Images
Rugby is unashamedly a game about winning collisions and, in the 6ft 4in, 18st 7lb Chandler Cunningham-South, England have a human Exocet who relishes knocking ball-carriers back from whence they came. In the Autumn Nations Series, he lifted 82,000 fans off their feet at Twickenham, with a rib-rearranging hit on All Black Sevu Reece. This was especially galling for the New Zealanders given that Cunningham-South was raised in Auckland, after his parents emigrated. Attending the famous Hamilton Boys’ School before moving across town to Westlake, he moved back to the UK with London Irish at 18.
With flowing dreadlocks and good looks, his all-action, high-energy style of play suits a fresh-faced England side. The Harlequin doesn’t mind showing his personality, either. After two tries against Australia, he celebrated with a Cole Palmer-esque brush of his sleeves. A star in the making.
France’s Bordeaux Bullet: Louis Bielle-Biarrey
Fleet-footed French winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey. Credit: Aurelien Meunier via Getty Images
In the 1980s, jet-heeled French wing Patrice Lagisquet was nicknamed The Bayonne Express and, 40 years on, another slight, elegant 21 year old, Louis Bielle-Biarrey, has taken over his mantle as the Bordeaux Bullet. Hailing from the foothills of the Alps, where he was a gifted footballer, his mother is from La Reunion in the Indian Ocean. Bielle-Biarrey has been devastating in the past 18 months for Fabien Galthie’s men, sporting a red scrum-cap that should spell danger for flat-footed opposition defenders, and perfectly complements the more powerful Damien Penaud on the other flank, for club and country.
The wing showed his opportunistic instincts with a try against the All Blacks in November, clocking an extraordinary 21.6mph as he accelerated past defenders. He boasts a sharp rugby brain, too. With the ability to kick with both feet and boyish looks, he is a marketer’s dream. His irresistible form has led national coach Galthie to splutter that Bielle-Biarrey ‘is on the way to becoming world class. Perhaps he already is’.
Ireland’s Mr Universe: Andrew Porter
Six Nations rugby has been given the Netflix treatment in recent seasons and one player to stand out was the heavily inked prop Andrew Porter. The Dubliner tragically lost his mother, Wendy, to cancer when he was 12 and he spoke movingly about how he lost his confidence and struggled with an eating disorder. Rugby mended a broken heart when he found he had the propensity for lifting very heavy weights, supersizing his body and leaving him with legs like small oaks, as well as arms that wouldn’t look out of place at a Mr Universe convention. He learnt to express his feelings and he hasn’t stopped since, using his profile to help others.
Now a mainstay in a brilliant Ireland squad, Porter’s strength is that he can play on both sides of the scrum and he routinely emerges, bloodied but unbowed, having bested cauliflower-eared opposition props. Final words go to his fellow prop, Tadhg ‘Jukebox’ Furlong: ‘He’s a hell of a player.’
Scotland’s friendly ghost: Darcy Graham
Scotland’s Will-o’-the-Wisp Darcy Graham. Credit: Ross Parker/SNS Group via Getty Images
Reared from rugged farming stock in the Borders, Darcy Graham is a throw-back to a bygone era. Like a Will-o’-the-Wisp, he ghosts past defenders with alarming success, aping hot-steppers of yesteryear such as David Duckham and Shane Williams. With his peroxide-blonde hair and de rigueur throwback ’tache, he pinballs around the field and is rarely seen without a toothy grin.
There is substance to go with his style, as well. At 27, he is second only to Duhan van der Merwe as Scotland’s all-time top try-scorer and has 17 tries in his past 11 Tests. If defenders can get their mitts on his tough Hawick hide, they’d better hold on, because he bolts like a bucking bronco, leading head coach Gregor Townsend to exclaim: ‘His strength to get out of tackles is up there with the best in the world.’
Wales’s most valuable player: Tomos Williams
Welsh wonder Tomos Williams. Credit: Tim Clayton/Corbis via Getty Images
The impish Welsh scrum-half has ignited the famously hard-to-please Shed stand at Gloucester this season, with a series of performances showcasing his sumptuous skill-set and helping his cavalier side with a try involvement every 55 minutes. A teenage basketball star for Wales, Tomos Williams can do things with a rugby ball that beggar belief. Born and raised in the Rhondda valley town of Treorchy, he spent his career with Cardiff before moving to the West Country.
With 59 caps in a struggling Wales side, his elusive running, varied kicking game and growing leadership skills will be vital to head coach Warren Gatland keeping his job — he is simply a player he cannot afford to lose. Tight-lipped off the pitch, Williams prefers to do his talking on it and is heavily tipped to make the Lions tour in the summer.
Italy’s white wizard: Tommaso Menoncello
A quiz question for rugby lovers in years to come will be: who was the 2024 Six Nations player of the tournament? If you’re stumped, you’re not alone, because rugby’s cognoscenti plumped for little-known Italian centre Tommaso Menoncello — the first Italian to win it since Andrea Masi in 2011. Alongside Ignacio Brex, his adamantine partner in midfield, Menoncello was a muscular presence with a ‘thou shalt not pass’ mentality, making more dominant tackles than any other player in the tournament.
Football’s loss was rugby’s gain, because his first amore was with the round ball before his side folded. Fortunately, he grew up in one of Italy’s few rugby hot-beds, Treviso, and made a swift ascent in the sport. Still only 22, Menoncello already has 23 Italian caps and his quicksilver try against the All Blacks in November marked him out as an athlete of rare ability. Former England assistant coach Paul Gustard gushed that the centre is ‘in the top five young players I have ever coached’.
Coverage of this year’s Guinness Six Nations tournament is shared between BBC and ITV, with the first match — between France and Wales — kicking off at 8.15pm on Friday, January 31 on ITV
