A classic weekend at the Six Nations

Has there ever been a more wondrous start to a tournament than the first weekend of this term’s Six Nations? In any sport for that matter. England playing like the All Blacks, with Owen Farrell in stupendous form and Billy Twelvetrees, the face of a choirboy and the frame of Hercules, blasting all before him; a reborn Ireland on the way to crushing Wales in Cardiff before beating off a thrilling fightback; and then the best of all, on a sunny afternoon in front of a roaring Roman crowd.

When you saw Italy’s warrior prop, Leicester’s Martin Castrogiovanni, hirsute and terrifying, belting out the last words of his country’s anthem — ‘Italy has called us,’ if you’re interested — with a ferocity that could have blasted the cameraman over the walls of the Olympic Stadium and into the Tiber, you knew that Les Bleus would not have it all their own way.