Comebacks, controversy and coverage
Post categories: Rugby
| 10:40 UK time, Wednesday, 14 March 2007
Oh well, same old story in the Six Nations last weekend with all the usual ingredients - a fairytale comeback at Twickenham, refereeing controversy in Rome, and a charge-down try at Murrayfield.
Throw in another Irish Triple Crown and accusations of an O'Garroting for his fly half from coach Eddie O'Sullivan and there was barely room left in the papers for that .
And the great thing is that after France's Grand Slam ambitions became the last to be thwarted, this week's could see champions crowned out of each of the three final games.
The star of the weekend was . As Austin Healey illustrated at half-time of our broadcast, the normally cool Catt was visibly affected by the preliminaries and was over-anxious in a tight first half such was his keeness to lead his young team by example.
But, again as Healey predicted, he became top Catt as the French defence tired, finding the space to encourage his youthful backline to a . The performances of youngsters Flood, Strettle, Rees and supersub Shane Geraghty had the Twickenham crowd dreaming of a brave new world for the world champions.
On Sunday our coverage also featured exclusive footage of the confused final moments from Rome where the . Referee Chris White blew for full time moments after telling the Welsh team that they would have time for a lineout from a penalty if they hurried.
White, one of the world's top officials, on Sunday, but as we showed, White was acting on advice from the Television Match Official Geoff Warren. It was the TMO who said there were "10 seconds" left but who then said time was up as James Hook put the ball in touch.
Our Welsh pundit Jonathan Davies summed it up best when he said that the controversy should not detract from another disappointing day for the 2005 Grand Slam winners nor from a history-making back-to-back victory for the Italians.
The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ also had its part to play in the other main controversy of the weekend, as . After Eddie O'Sullivan's allegations against the Scots we made available all angles of the incident to the citing officer. This is normal practice at International matches. 
Of course we poured over all the material ourselves, but there was no evidence available to support the Irish coach's claims. What they did show was the quick action of John Hayes in putting his team-mate into the recovery position and calling for medical help.
**Thank you as ever for your comments sent in about last weekend. We did receive a number of complaints about one remark made by Brian Moore during the commentary on England v France.
The next day Brian issued a statement saying: "I apologise wholeheartedly for any offence this comment may have caused." The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ too believed that the remark was unacceptable and apologises for any offence caused.
** on ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ ONE this Saturday runs uninterrupted from 1pm until 7.30pm with another 30 minutes available via the red button for good measure after that.
As is customary now Saturday's programme will have "The Cut" near the top of the programme. This is our alternative look-back at the previous week's action voiced by Eddie Butler.
We put extra cameras into the games to attempt to show from a low angle the brutal physicality of modern rugby, the speed of the skills employed, with cameras on the crowd, the passion and humour of Six Nations audiences.
Also, we'll dig out a famous Welsh tune from The Sterophonics which was penned in 1999 for a ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Wales promotion. Titled the tune summed up the feelings of many Welshmen. That year, of course, Scott Gibbs's late try and Neil Jenkins's cool conversion gave the Welsh a shock win at wembley and stopped an England Grand Slam.
This year with four defeats from four outings, it will never have sounded more appropriate if Wales can prevent a whitewash by beating Brian Ashton's team.
I hope that this sort of humour can continue to be a major part of the national rivalries that are central to what makes the Six Nations the event that it has become.
