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In terms of playing numbers and budget, it looks like a waste of time for any other side to contest the six nations apart from England and France. Obviously though, this doesn’t seem to work in real life. What are the prospects of the two Northern hemispere giants this time around?

Fortunes were quite contrasting for France and England at the recent world cup with England being shunted out of the cup at the quarter final stage by our gallic neighbours with quite some ease. Given that France could (and perhaps should) have gone on to win the final, they might seem to be a stronger bet than England to take six nations honours.

However, France have always been a nation of contradictions, and their recent results point in this direction again. If rumblings from within the French camp are to be believed, the entire world cup campaign was a barely organised chaos. Some of Marc Lièvrements selections certainly support this (Morgan Parra at fly half anyone?). The world cup final also saw the end of Lièvrement’s 4 years in charge and has been met by a huge sigh of relief by most French supporters. He is replaced by Philippe Saint-andré, who is proving to be as good as a selector as he was as France’s captain a few years ago. Whether in England at Sale or over the channel in Bourgoin and more recently Toulon, Saint-André has been very good at picking the best players available and getting them to sing from the same hymn sheet.

This is all that has been missing for France’s national side, because they can match anyone for talent. There are players doing the rounds in the French top 14 who would walk into some international teams. And this isn’t just the famous French flair. Hard-nosed forwards like Pascal Papé and Lionel Nallet and a host of hard-scrummaging props make France feared up front. If and when this all clicks, they could run up cricket scores against the likes of Scotland and Italy.

Which brings us to the mess that is England. A world cup exit amidst tabloid stories of partying players, followed by two months of squabbles at the heart of the RFU isn’t really grounds for optimism. If Martin Johnson was unable to turn this lot around, who can? And yet his caretaker replacement, Stuart Lancaster, is an extremely shrewd coach who has been working within the England set up for the last few years. Since 2008, nobody knows better the state of up and coming talent in the English game. He is working with less pressure than Johnson as well because a six nations win in the circumstances would be a bonus.

On the paying front the cupboard is actually far from bare. Up front, there are plenty of good younger players from Cole and Corbisiero to Croft and Haskell. At the back Foden, Armitage and Ashton are as potent as anyone. If the coaching team can unlock the key to setting their outside backs free, England could be back on top. Unfortuately, time is short and who knows if all the off field problems have had a longer lasting effect than predicted.

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