Sean Davies (archive)
- Mark Orlovac
- 20 Mar 07, 01:45 PM
London - So after five weekends of thrilling action, the dust has settled on another Six Nations campaign.
Before the tournament started, our team of BBC Six Nations bloggers sat down to select a combined team of the tournament and we did the same three games in.
Now hostilities have come to an end, the votes have been painstakingly counted and we can exclusively reveal what we think is our definitive starting XV.
Triple crown winners Ireland provide six of the team, with champions France and Italy having four players apiece.
Youngster David Strettle is England's only selection while Wales and Wooden Spoonists Scotland miss out altogether.
Six players from the original team have kept their places, and interestingly five of them are in the pack.
Let us know what you think of our selections, what we've got right, what we've got wrong, and let us know how your Six Nations XV would look.
Continue reading "Team of the Tournament"
- Sean Davies
- 15 Mar 07, 10:51 AM
Cardiff - I took a fair bit of abuse in a previous blog as people seemed to think that my desire to see Wales beat England made me some sort of atavistic cave dweller.
With the big Cardiff showdown now looming large, I’m still clearly smarting as I’ve decided to revisit the touchy subject.
Now I don’t believe that a win over our oldest rivals should be Wales’ ultimate ambition, or that it would completely make up for a dismal Championship for Gareth Jenkins’ team. But it would set the world to rights, if only for a short while – and here’s why…
Continue reading "As long as Wales beat the English"
- Sean Davies
- 14 Mar 07, 10:00 AM
Cardiff - Ok, Stephen Jones has taken some pretty vociferous criticism on various blogs and message boards for his performances in this season's Six Nations, and now he's out of the England game.
I think a lot of the flak has been pretty unfair to a player who is a great servant to Welsh rugby and I would have kept him at outside-half in Wales' first four games of the Championship.
But Phil Bennett said that Jones should have been taken out of the firing line after his battering in Rome and I'm with him on that one (hey, it's not a bad opinion to share!), but let's throw it open for your thoughts - I'm sure there'll be a few as usual on the Welsh number 10 debate!
Continue reading "Jones loss a blessing in disguise?"
- Bryn Palmer
- 5 Mar 07, 01:34 PM
London Before the Six Nations began, we had a con-flab here in the BBC Sport website office about who would be in our combined team of the tournament.
After three rounds of action, our original team have not entirely justified our faith in them...Only six of the original XV make our latest combined XV, which has been based on aggregating my selections with four of my colleagues.
Controversially (or not given the results/table?), there's no room for a single player from Scotland, Wales - or England.
We will revisit the subject after the final two rounds. Anyway, see what you think..
Continue reading "Six Nations XV - take II"
- Sean Davies
- 5 Mar 07, 09:43 AM
Cardiff - Here's my team of the tournament so far:
15. Clement Poitrenaud
14. Shane Horgan
13. Brian O’Driscoll
12. Gordon D’Arcy
11. Christophe Dominici
10. David Skrela
9. Allessandro Troncon
1. Marco Castrogiovanni
2. Raphael Ibanez
3. Andrea Lo Cicero
4. Lionel Nallet
5. Marco Bortolami
6. Simon Easterby
7. David Wallace
8. Alix Popham
Check out our combined VX based on aggregating all our selections.
- Sean Davies
- 2 Mar 07, 12:07 PM
Cardiff - The general impression I’ve been getting from around the country this week is that the majority of Welsh fans see their team as the underdogs for next week’s game with Italy at the Stadio Flaminio.
If that’s correct, it’s the first time it’s happened - although I imagine that moods will swing back to the usual ridiculous Welsh optimism as we build towards the fixture!
I don’t have any scientific facts to back up the theory, so I thought I’d throw it open and see what the mood of the nation is.
Continue reading "Who are favourites in Rome?"
- Sean Davies
- 28 Feb 07, 05:59 PM
Cardiff - There can only be one way to go after Super Saturday - the Six Nations must be expanded and taken to Spain.
Now we could have the worthy Argentina side playing from there, or we could allow the Spanish national team in to give Wales the chance of winning a game (I’m sure Scotland would throw the new boys a few tries to get them started).
But the basic plan is the only sober conclusion I can come to after witnessing Saturday’s eight-hour marathon feast from the depths of Finnegan’s genuine Irish bar in Valencia.
Continue reading "Super Saturday from a skewed angle"
- Sean Davies
- 11 Feb 07, 04:26 PM
Cardiff - “The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.
“The others are those who who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later” - Hunter S Thompson.
So how can a side like Wales, who lived and thrived on that edge between prudence and disaster in 2005, be reduced to the ineptitude of Murrayfield 2007?
Continue reading "Wales flounder around The Edge"
- Sean Davies
- 5 Feb 07, 03:43 PM
Cardiff - Considering Wales’ early February dreams of Triple Crowns and Grand Slams had been shattered after the first 80 minutes of their Championship campaign, there was a remarkably positive feeling reverberating around the streets of Cardiff on Sunday night.
Now there’s no doubt that the liberal amounts of alcohol doled out on St Mary’s Street had a major influence on that.
But, inebriation aside, I think that the lightness of Welsh spirits can be attributed to three specific factors.
Continue reading "Wales revels in defeat"
- Sean Davies
- 4 Feb 07, 06:07 PM
Millennium Stadium- I witnessed at first hand the thrills and spills of Sunday's Six Nations clash in Cardiff. See if you agree with my ratings for players on both sides.
Wales
K Morgan - 8. Wales’ biggest counter-attacking threat; pulled off a stunning, try-saving tackle on O’Driscoll.
H Luscombe - 4. Luscombe’s talents in the centre are often unfairly criticised, but he showed again that he lacks the pace of an international wing and is only an emergency stand-in in the role.
J Robinson – 5. Although Robinson offers genuine pace at 13 there was a lack of penetration from the Wales three-quarter line.
J Hook – 6. Flashes of his attacking skill came through, but he struggled to handle D’Arcy’s physicality and had a crucial second-half clearance kick charged down.
Continue reading "Wales v Ireland player ratings"
- Sean Davies
- 2 Feb 07, 02:28 PM
Cardiff - Altitude training and an escape from the all-consuming Six Nations build-up with a stay in Tenerife was the meticulously planned schedule for this year’s Championship.
I’m not sure whether this would have worked for any of the squads, but my pre-tournament jolly didn’t quite maximise my effectiveness for the mighty tasks to come.
The Wales team announcement should have been done and dusted by the time I plunged back into work, with time to build up the battles before heading down to the Millennium Stadium for the Ireland game on Sunday. But nothing is ever that straightforward in Welsh rugby – certainly not when Gareth Thomas is involved.
Continue reading "From the volcano to the cauldron"
- Sean Davies
- 22 Jan 07, 11:46 AM
Cardiff - While Gareth Jenkins belongs to the belief that lyrical flow is the way forward in his interviews, the Wales coach has always displayed a more prosaic approach to his rugby selections.
His achievements in 24 years of coaching at Stradey Park were enormous, but there was criticism that a conservative approach in the big games could have cost Llanelli Heineken Cup glory.
Now he has finally been given his deserved chance in charge of Wales, is he showing the same tendency to rely on the tried, the trusted… the mundane?
Continue reading "So does Jenkins like flog over flair?"
- Sean Davies
- 18 Jan 07, 03:57 PM
I'm a sports writer who has been working for the BBC out of the Cardiff office for the last seven years, specialising - whenever I get the chance - in rugby and boxing.
The Six Nations have been the highlight of my sporting year for as long as I can remember. Although this working lark does seem to have cut back on my chances to enjoy the full range of the tournament's festivities, my liver thanks me for it and it's a privilege to get so close to the stories and the action.
I'm originally from Tredegar in the south Wales valleys. I have to confess to being a bit soft, though, as I never really took to regular visits to The Rec, and my real love for the game developed in the balmier climes of Swansea where I studied history. I went through my university days there as Mike Ruddock built his great Swansea side of the early '90s, and it will take a lot to convince me that Wales have moved on since sacking the Grand Slam coach.
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