The Pundits' Preview of the Six Nations

England are looking in reasonable shape. They didn’t have the autumn they would have desired, but a brand new year opens up a brand new start. When you’re England head coach, you’re always under pressure. With Steve Borthwick not having the year he, or any of us, would have wanted, he’s got to try and deliver. Two years out from a Rugby World Cup, will we see a turnaround in fortunes? 2025 is the year where national teams will stick or twist.

The squad is a nice blend of experienced and really young, exciting players. Maro Itoje is a wonderful leader, a brilliant captain and, at his best, completely world class. Fly-half Marcus Smith is one of the most talented, exciting players we’ve had in a very long time. He’s going to have a significant part to play.

Wales have never gone into a tournament in worse form. If I said: “Wales are looking all right, they’ve got a chance” I think that would be disingenuous. Wales are really, really struggling.

Warren Gatland has had some incredible success in this tournament, but if you’re the head coach of a team that have lost 12 on the spin, coming off the back of the wooden spoon last year, you are under serious pressure. Warren knows that, but something has to change. There are some players who don’t know what it’s like to win in a Welsh shirt and they’ve been there for over a year, which is just a mad, mad stat.

There’s such high expectation for Ireland at the moment, but we’ve known for a year that Andy Farrell is going to be the Lions’ coach. Simon Easterby is taking over, while Andy watches from afar. It’s a new challenge for the team to see whether they’re excessively reliant on the head coach’s voice.

Ireland are probably favourites on the basis of meeting France and England at home. There’s nothing between Ireland, France and England as teams, in truth. It’s a very well balanced Six Nations. Everything revolves around what happens in the first weekend.

Scotland haven’t won the competition since it was the Five Nations in 1999, but I feel that this is the best crop of players and the best coached crop of players that we’ve probably ever had.

In recent years, we’ve gone to Twickenham and won convincingly, gone to Paris and won, gone to Wales and won. It’s a very good time to be a Scottish rugby fan — even though we haven’t won a trophy.