Here are the latest rugby headlines on Monday, February 27.
Moore: 'Wales gameplan bordered on rugby madness'
Brian Moore claims Wales' kicking tactics in the Six Nations defeat to England "bordered on rugby madness".
Warren Gatland's side also came under fire from rugby legend Jonathan 'Jiffy' Davies during commentary, as the hosts in Cardiff repeatedly gifted possession to one of the best full-backs in the world under the high ball, England's Freddie Steward.
Agreeing, Moore wrote in his column for The Telegraph: "There is always the chance that adversity can galvanise, and you could not fault the effort of the Wales players. That said, maximal effort is the minimum required at this level. Thereafter, a bit of guile and sophistication is needed to break defences that are rock solid if faced with simple hard-running ball carriers. Clear thinking is necessary to avoid continually kicking the ball to one of the world’s best defensive catchers in Freddie Steward; it bordered on rugby madness."
Referencing the threat of a Wales player strike, he said: "England will have been grateful that Wales’ preparation before their clash in Cardiff was disrupted by threatened strike action from their players. They will have been even more grateful that the Welsh attack, metaphorically, carried on that strike during the match. Wales, at the moment, could play for 100 minutes a game and not threaten the opponent’s line. The poacher’s try by Louis Rees-Zammit kept Wales close in a game that England could, probably should, have won by 20 points."
The former England and Lions hooker added that Wales have "paper-thin" depth and identified being second best at the breakdown and a lack of focus in their ambitions as the two most disappointing Welsh aspects.
He added: "Captain Ken Owens, who never gives anything less than his utmost, spoke about trusting the processes after the game. This is management-speak that means nothing if those processes are so opaque that they do not seem clear to the players expected to carry them out."
Scarlets boss responds to Nigel Walker 'feet to fire' talk
Scarlets chairman Simon Muderack says a "number of participants need to be held to account" as regions begin to offer contracts to their players after Wales' threatened strike was averted at the weekend.
One of the compromises put forward at a summit at the Vale Resort last Wednesday was allowing players to have a choice between fixed salaries or fixed-variable contracts, and full offers being put on the table from this week.
Acting Welsh Rugby Union chief executive Nigel Walker told TV cameras on Saturday: "The regions have signed up to giving them contracts by the end of next week [w/c February 27]. If that doesn't happen I will be holding their feet to the fire. Make no mistake about that."
Responding, Scarlets boss Muderack pointed out it is the regions who are offering contracts at risk to themselves while a six-year finance framework is yet to be signed off.
"I think Nigel was caught a little bit cold, maybe, on Saturday," he told Radio Wales. "To be clear, he's fronted up and was trying to show some leadership and give people reassurance. Indeed, the regions stepped forward and at our own risk gave Nigel the ability to communicate to the players in the Vale on Wednesday that we would be moving forward with contracts this week - in the absence of the new deal actually concluding this week. That's very much the regional decision and it's at our risk.
"I think what Nigel was trying to do was just reassure people that we'll work together to get that done as effectively as we can this week. But certainly I think in terms of feet to the fire, there are a number of participants that need to be held to account in order to get that done. Certainly, it was the regions who are leading this initiative."
As for the long-term deal, he said: "The reality is we received only through the weekend what I'd say is close to a final set of documents from the union. So rest assured we will spend every waking hour, as indeed I already have, poring through those documents in order to try and get to the final deal.
"In parallel this week, we will move forward with contracts with players. In our instance the Scarlets, and I can't talk for other regions, we were clear as we possibly could be and very specific in the majority of cases with our players before Christmas about what they would or would not receive. You've always got that band of players in the middle where there's a 'maybe' but you have that every year, but I do appreciate that until final, final contracts that people can put ink to the bottom are in their hands, it's not quite the certainty people require. We need to move forward with that now, so we'll work as hard as we possibly can. I think with some humility, compromise and a lot of pragmatism, we can get this done relatively quickly."
A potential regional player strike was mooted last week, and Muderack says he cannot rule that out going forward, should players not be offered contracts this week or be unhappy with their proposed deal. He said: "I can't rule anything out at this point. I think it's been a challenging number of weeks and people are prepared to make their views known. I'd like to think we can progress this week so that that doesn't become an eventuality, but I wouldn't want to discredit the players by ruling that out.
"I have no doubt the players are frustrated and rightly so on a number of fronts. They feel they're at a point now where they need to speak up very clearly and take specific action around it. I think it's our responsibility to do whatever we can to ensure that doesn't happen. The reality is striking doesn't ultimately serve anyone a purpose in terms of the impact it brings. If you look at [Wales v England], if that had not gone ahead, in all likelihood the WRU would have been in liquidation. That could have been as significant as a £25m downside swing against the union. We need to be realistic here but at the end of the day we also need to deliver against what we say we're going to do."
'Scotland can still win Six Nations despite France defeat'
Bullish Huw Jones is adamant Scotland are still very much alive and kicking in the battle for the Guinness Six Nations title despite returning from Paris with nothing to show for their spirited performance. The Scots roared back from 19-0 down to get within four points of France going into the closing stages, but the hosts scored a late try to secure a 32-21 victory and ensure the visitors were denied a bonus point.
Gregor Townsend's side are second in the table and must overturn a five-point deficit and an inferior points difference if they are to get ahead of championship leaders and top-ranked side in the world Ireland, who they welcome to BT Murrayfield in their next match before then hosting Italy.
"It was tough to see France go over the line right at the end and miss out on the losing bonus point but we're still in it with two games at home to play," said centre Jones. "We back ourselves against anybody in this championship, but especially at home.
"We've got a good record at Murrayfield, we make it tough for anyone who comes there, so we've got a lot to look forward to and a lot of positives to take from the France game. We've improved a lot but we've still not hit our peak so hopefully over the next two weeks we can get there and put out an 80-minute performance."
Jones feels Scotland - who won their first two games against England and Wales - are coming to the boil nicely ahead of their potentially pivotal showdown with the Irish.
"We've improved game by game in the tournament," he said. "Despite the loss against France, I think that was our best all-round performance. We're just looking to improve week by week and our next game's at home against Ireland, another top-two team in the world, but like against France when we thought we could have come away with the win, we'll back ourselves to win in two weeks. We'll go into that game with confidence."
Farrell hopeful Ireland will have key players back for Scotland game
Ireland boss Andy Farrell is optimistic most of his sidelined stars will be fit and firing for a crunch Murrayfield showdown with title rivals Scotland. The world's top-ranked team shrugged off the absence of a host of first-team players to keep themselves on course for a Guinness Six Nations Grand Slam with Saturday's 34-20 win over Italy.
Captain Johnny Sexton, prop Tadhg Furlong, lock Tadhg Beirne, scrum-half Jamison Gibson-Park and centres Garry Ringrose and Robbie Henshaw were all unavailable in Rome. While Beirne has been ruled out of the remainder of the championship, Farrell is confident his squad will be significantly bolstered ahead of the round-four visit to Edinburgh on March 12.
Asked who will be available, the head coach replied: "Not far off all of them. Tadhg (Furlong) is going really well and we would expect him to train Wednesday and Thursday when we're in camp. Jamison's fit, Robbie's fit, so we've got a good crop of players coming back when it matters."
Furlong, whose tighthead deputy Finlay Bealham was injured at Stadio Olimpico, Gibson-Park and Henshaw are yet to feature in this year's tournament.
Although Farrell concedes that situation is far from perfect, he is confident the returning players can swiftly get up to speed.
He said: "Well, obviously, it matters because ideally you would love (for them to have some game time) but how many times have we done this now? We've done it time and time again in regards of it not being ideal. But we pride ourselves on making sure that our training gets people up to speed and we'll see how they'll come back into that and deal with all that."
Ireland have dominated clashes with Scotland during the past decade, winning 11 of the past 12 meetings.
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