In fairness you've little evidence for that.
Ireland are defending 6N's champions, had a brilliant performance in the WC and are an established tough nut to crack.
France and England are starting from scratch and will be looking to impress their new coaches. Also, the form of the English and French clubs might carry over to the national set ups.
Arguably the Scots showed as much form as anyone in the WC and were robbed in not making the semis.
Given the injuries Wales had an admirable WC but i see nothing spectacular in their form. A kick of the ball beat England and as expected they failed against the SH sides. How that qualifies them as the in form side i'm not sure.
I'm Welsh of course and we all harbour slight bias no matter how hard we try but evidence wise am I far wrong?
Wales had a poor period against England in the 6 Nations but from there went on to find some fine s arguable that we would have won the 6n had we kicked off last against Italy. As it was we effectively told both England and Ireland to throw conservatism out of the window and go for broke but it is what it is, the fixtures are what they are. Ireland won because they deserved to win.
Since then the full Welsh team looked mighty impressive against Ireland in the final ful squad warm up for RWC. I thought we looked as strong as I have seen us up front in years in that game.
Injuries ripped the well-documented 'poor squad depth' to shreds yet somehow the players dubbed inferior by the media all seemed to step up. Wales blew it against the Aussies again and to be fair were a hairs breadth from beating the Boks - of course only the win counts.
So for me out of the 6N teams I think we had the best World Cup even without the injuries but throw them into the mix and our performance was remarkable
So now we head into 6N 2016 with pretty much a full first 15. If Warburton doesnt make it, Tipuric is in blinding form anyway. Davies is now neck and neck with Webb at 9 and I'd argue that if Williams plays, he is a better 15 than Halfpenny and Biggar is only a fraction behind him as a kicker anyway.
Cuthburt has been abject but Tom James is as big, and In spectacular form, and we have our first choice centres (although I'd prefer Williams/Davies at 12/13 myself.
It's down to Gatland. The team is there, bang in form, full strength and after Twickenham should not have any fear about being In Ireland, or back to Twickenham for that matter. If Gatland learns from RWC and plays with just that little bit more creativity - he doesn't have to re-write his formula - we could go very well indeed.
First up in Ireland suits us because I truly believe they will suffer from post--POC Blues. Any team would struggle to replace the man, he was more integral to the Oirish way than even BOD.
So yeah, I think the evidence is there but of course we could get torn a new one in Ireland and I will look a right chump...
To be a fortune teller eh!
. There's many of them. The WC has thrown up many exciting youngsters and force clubs to dip in their academy. The clubs are also looking at their recruitment policies. That's positive.
