Wales look for first successive wins over England since 1989

Previews of all three of this weekend’s Six Nations matches

Wales coach Warren Gatland has raised the stakes ahead of his team’s home clash with England by accusing them of being negative. The New Zealander says his opponents have gone “backwards in term of positivity” under Martin Johnson and claims they are “clearly trying to get a win no matter how”. Will he be proved right? Here are the key stats for this weekend’s action:

France v Scotland (3pm, Saturday, BBC1)
Les Bleus have beaten the Scots in nine of their last ten encounters and a decade has passed since the visitors last triumphed in France. It’s very unlikely that an upset will take place. Besides one victory against regular wooden spoon winners Italy in 2006, you have to go back to 2002 (Wales) to find Scotland’s last away win in the Six Nations. France haven’t lost successive Six Nations games in the same year since 2001.

Wales v England (5.30pm, Saturday, BBC1)
Twenty years have passed since Wales last managed to achieve consecutive wins over England but they go into Saturday’s clash at the Millennium Stadium as massive favourites, with 888sport offering a best value 1/4 on the home win. The form guide backs Wales, who have won seven straight Six Nations games while England have won just three of their last eleven away games in the competition. If you want to back the outsiders, read the Betfair Contrarian’s argument as to why England will triumph.

Italy v Ireland (2.30pm, Sunday, BBC2)
Ireland have won twelve consecutive matches against Italy, who have lost ten of their last twelve games. The hosts have won just six of the 46 Six Nations they have been involved in and none of those wins came against Ireland.  The visitors have however lost eight straight away games since beating Italy in Rome two years ago.

Posted: February 13th, 2009 by Michael Lintorn |