"The national obsession starts up again this week. Here's a few improvement ideas for rugby. 1. Encourage the TV commentators to be a little kinder on the referees. Players contest the breakdown, and commentators contest breakdown decisions. Constantly. Continually analysing this highly subjective area of the game is pointless, unfair on referees and affects the legitimacy of the sport. A few of our commentators appear to believe they know the rules better than the whistlers, which I bet they don't. The main point here is that breakdowns can indeed be things of beauty if there is greater acceptance that interpretations of them are largely in the eye of the beholder. Rugby by nature is something of a lottery folks - and the game appears all the better when you accept that. As for coaches who keep demanding greater consistency at the breakdown, they are usually excuse-makers who should put more energy into doing their own jobs better."

"For many, the shortest month of the year has popularly become the month for abstinence from alcohol. Most call it FebFast. Some of my friends, however, call it "friendless February" because it's the month you lose your personality – and therefore your friends. For others, February is the start of Super Rugby. This year's edition starts on Friday and, as always, it's a time where much of the inquiry speculates on the personality of the provinces and much of the pressure bears down on the teams to play both attractive and winning rugby. One of the problems with such a challenge lies in the definition, as what is deemed attractive rugby is not always winning rugby and what is winning is not always attractive."

"Richardt Strauss' participation in Ireland training prior to the cancelled match with France garnered plenty of attention, with the South African due to qualify for Ireland this year after completing his three-year residency. While Strauss' likely Ireland participation will stick in the craw of those who do not believe national identity can be acquired after a mere 36 months (not to mention the indigenous hookers whom he will leapfrog in the process), there is no doubt a player of his quality could strengthen Ireland."

"As Stuart Hogg prepares to become the latest young talent handed a Scotland starting jersey, there is a sense that the team is on the cusp of something. It all hinges on the selection nous and timing of Andy Robinson and his coaching team. In the pack, the improvement of Ross Ford, Jim Hamilton and Kelly Brown (albeit not available in this championship) into recognised Test-quality performers, alongside the emergence of Richie Gray and David Denton, roundly talented youngsters still with much time to develop and learn, and the return of Ross Rennie to fitness and the kind of form he promised before injury struck, provide the core of a strong pack for a few years to come. The only change in today’s announcement of the team to face France is expected to come at blindside flanker, where Alasdair Strokosch has been ruled out by a broken hand. It is expected that Robinson will start John Barclay, a regular openside, there, which will help Scotland’s efforts to run the French pack about the field."

"It says everything about the competition for places within the Welsh squad that Ryan Jones has failed to make the starting line-up for Saturday’s Triple Crown bid at Twickenham. Jones has been Wales’ forward of the championship so far, having excelled in two different positions in the victories over Ireland and Scotland. Yet he has to make do with a seat on the bench for this weekend’s Six Nations showdown against England, with the fit-again Alun Wyn Jones replacing him in the second-row."

"Wales 6 - Dan Lydiate Age: 24 Caps: 21 Height: 6ft 4in Weight: 17st 10lb Happy to go about his work in the shadow of his captain but a first-class flanker in his own right. Very rarely does his tackle count stay in single figures and he makes himself a complete nuisance at the breakdown. England love to keep it tight and attack the blindside, but they might want to think again with Lydiate lurking. "

"One of the significant achievements of the Lions coach designate, Warren Gatland, is that no one ever moans about him being a Kiwi. He’s a coach, a fine coach, renowned for his hard edge, his bluntness, his empathy, and for the relentless drive to produce teams that do not wilt in the face of challenges. On that count he is in credit when considering his experiences with Wasps, the most competitively ruthless and self-assured club side of their era. With Wales, the case is not yet wholly proven, potent as the team have been on occasions. In the World Cup, they flunked the big challenges, Ireland excepted, for a variety of reasons. Gatland’s side have played sumptuous Rugby Union over the past six months but the big test is right in front of him in the immediate shape of England. If his side win the triple crown with victory at Twickenham on Saturday, so delivering on those expectations, then his coronation as Lions coach for the tour to Australia in 2013 will surely not be long in coming."

"Rugby fans who say the modern game is being dominated more and more by heftier iron pumping players can point to scientific evidence to back their case. Teams with the tallest backs and heaviest forwards are the likeliest to win the Rugby World Cup, according to a study by French researchers published today. Adrien Sedeaud of the Institute of Sports Biomedicine and Epidemiology in Paris collected data for the age, weight and height for 2,692 players who took part in World Cup matches between 1987 and 2007, and compared this with their team's performance."

"It's easy to choose the most relieved player in the Australian Super Rugby ranks. Wallabies prop Benn Robinson wins comfortably after he convinced himself and state selectors that his long injury ordeal was finally over by playing in the Waratahs comfortable trial win over Tonga in Sydney on Friday night. Robinson was Australian rugby's unluckiest player last season. He hurt his knee last July, in what appeared to be an innocuous moment, when he set off for a run during a Wallabies training session at Coogee Oval before the Test against Samoa in Sydney. And that was the last time Robinson was sighted in 2011, having to withdraw from the World Cup squad due to a ruptured anterior cruciate ligament and torn meniscus. If available, Robinson would have been among the first picked for the World Cup. Instead, he was a frustrated spectator, although he had some involvement as a tournament expert on television."

"Leinster are prepared to fight the IRFU on their player succession strategy in order to hold on to Isa Nacewa. The in-form New Zealander expressed a desire to finish out his career with the European champions at the weekend, saying that he considers Ireland to be his home, as his daughters were born here. His contract expires at the end of next season, but he may have to move on due to the strategy which is planned to be in place by then. The plan states that non-Irish qualified players cannot be kept on at the end of their contracts and that they must be replaced by an Irish player."

"Feverish talk about a possible change to England's midfield configuration for this weekend's highly-charged Six Nations meeting with Wales at Twickenham was enough to drive Brad Barritt, the Test newcomer from Saracens, into battle-cry mode yesterday. "The Welsh backs are big but they're still people with two legs, and as they can't run without their legs it's up to us to cut them down," pronounced the centre, referring to Jamie Roberts, Jonathan Davies and the rest of the red-shirted brick outhouses. He might also have been talking of Manu Tuilagi, the Leicester centre who completed his return from injury by producing a match-winning performance at Saracens on Sunday – watched, funnily enough, by Barritt himself, who happens to be the man in possession of the shirt to which Tuilagi laid claim during last autumn's World Cup in New Zealand. The two of them will square up in training in Surrey today and if the South African-born contender succeeds in doing to his Samoan-born rival the things he would like to do to Roberts and company, he may yet hang on to his place in the starting line-up."

"So, can England expand against Wales? The interception of Ben Foden's pass by Tommaso Benvenuti probably gave the answer. It's a bit too soon in the process to be passing the ball. So, can Charlie [Hodgson] be dropped then? It's a bit too soon to be dropping the talisman. "England will need a bit of luck to beat Wales. A chargedown here and there, by Hodgson naturally, would be a start and England could then defend their lead. That is more comfortable territory, holding out, even against the towering Welsh backs. "[Stuart] Lancaster was brave in his selection of players, but to select a new style now and order a game of adventure against Wales would be to take courage to the brink of … what? If it came off the job would have to be his full-time. If not, statistical certainty would see him airbrushed from the picture."

"There seems a never-ending queue of people lining up to write off the Bulls' chances this year, and while those in Pretoria may feel aggrieved, there is some merit to the theory. "After all, no team come through unscathed when they lose a pack, their general and the architect of their success. The Bulls have certainly felt the losses, having said goodbye on the playing field to Victor Matfield, Bakkies Botha, Gurthro Steenkamp, Gary Botha, Danie Rossouw and their general Fourie du Preez. "Add to that Heyneke Meyer’s departure to the Springbok job and the brains trust has been depleted somewhat at Loftus. "But despite all of this there is optimism in the Bulls ranks. They will rightly point out that they won two Super Rugby titles without Meyer helping incumbent coach Frans Ludeke and that the structures are what are important in their quest for glory."

"New Zealand was the most disappointing performer during the 2011 Super 15 season in terms of people through the gate and eyeballs harvested on television. "There were extenuating circumstances - most notably the Crusaders' being forced away from AMI Stadium - but nothing that could totally account for the fan apathy. "While there was a rejuvenation of the Highlanders under Jamie Joseph, which is expected to continue with the move to the Forsyth Barr Stadium, the crowds were patchy at the Blues and grim at the Chiefs and Hurricanes. "The Chiefs were hampered by shocking weather, with home games having a knack of coinciding with miserable conditions (a run that continued in the pre-season match with the Hurricanes in Taupo on Friday). Poor form did not help either."

"If the Pumas spring some surprises over the next few years of the Rugby Championship, significant credit should go to Las Pampas. "No, not the thousands of kilometres of grasslands in inland Argentina, where cattle ranches abound in the agricultural centre of the nation. "Instead Las Pampas is the semi-professional, home-grown outfit that has played the last two seasons of the Vodacom Cup in South Africa, the second-tier competition to the Currie Cup and which is played for by that country's Super Rugby development teams. "Last year, they went unbeaten, trumping the Bulls development team in the final in a display of verve and flair. They captured the imagination back home but their impact goes well beyond national pride."