England legend Maggie Alphonsi speaks ahead of final Six Nations round
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The 2021 Women’s Six Nations concludes this weekend with much anticipation surrounding the final round.
The first of the fixtures sees Ireland taking on Italy, followed by England hosting France before the Scots tackle the Welsh.
As things stand, the title is up for grabs for one of two teams; England and France.
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After two rounds, Scotland and Wales find themselves winless while Italy and Ireland managed one victory apiece.
England and France, however, have performed well and emerged unbeaten, earning themselves a shot at the title.
While England have won their last seven encounters against the French, most of those matches went down to the wire, most notably the last game which saw the English win from a last-gasp penalty from Emily Scarratt.
England legend and current Six Nations ambassador Maggie Alphonsi had the following to say:
“I’m excited by England-France. You have to look at the past scores, the past seven Tests, England have won all of them. But the last one, when they played two Tests against France in the autumn, the last Test was a close one and some would say that France probably should have won that, and I’d say the same thing, they should have won that.
“There was a potential penalty decision that could have gone either way (that decided it). You know when you’ve been sitting on a loss so many times and you get to the point where you say ‘You know what, we’re going to win this’, and I feel like the French are almost starting to figure out what they need to do.
“They have also got almost all their key players there so (Caroline) Boujard, (Emilie) Boulard, who is a new one, they have a very strong side from the team that played England in the last fixture at Twickenham. So I think this will be a really good game.
“I’m not going to say who I think will win it, but I think it will be a close one. We’ve seen in the last lot of French games (against England) that the final score is decided in the last ten minutes, sometimes five, so whoever has a strong bench will make a big difference. England had a strong bench last time and they pulled Emily Scarratt off the bench who won the game for them, and their finishers could make a big difference.
“I’m excited by England-France. You have to look at the past scores, the past seven Tests, England have won all of them. But the last one, when they played two Tests against France in the autumn, the last Test was a close one and some would say that France probably should have won that, and I’d say the same thing, they should have won that.
“There was a potential penalty decision that could have gone either way (that decided it). You know when you’ve been sitting on a loss so many times and you get to the point where you say ‘You know what, we’re going to win this’, and I feel like the French are almost starting to figure out what they need to do.
“They have also got almost all their key players there so (Caroline) Boujard, (Emilie) Boulard, who is a new one, they have a very strong side from the team that played England in the last fixture at Twickenham. So I think this will be a really good game.
“I’m not going to say who I think will win it, but I think it will be a close one. We’ve seen in the last lot of French games (against England) that the final score is decided in the last ten minutes, sometimes five, so whoever has a strong bench will make a big difference. England had a strong bench last time and they pulled Emily Scarratt off the bench who won the game for them, and their finishers could make a big difference.
“So for me it’s a positive, the only challenge is does that impact the cohesion of the side. For the French it hasn’t. In the second Test they made eight changes, some would say that’s quite ludicrous but for them it made them better. So I don’t think it really impacts the French.”
