The middle weekend of Rugby’s Greatest Championship regularly produces some high-quality moments and it was no different in the 2018 NatWest 6 Nations.
Scotland’s first-half blitz helped them down reigning champions England for the first time in a decade while Ireland continued their hunt for a Grand Slam with victory over Wales.
And France earned their first win of the 2018 Championship with 34-17 success over Italy at Orange Stade Vélodrome in Marseille.
We’ve sifted through the stats for Round 3 to uncover a bit more about how the three games unfolded during the middle weekend.
Jones on fire
There was absolutely no stopping Huw Jones at BT Murrayfield on Saturday night as he continued to push his case for Player of the Championship.
Twice he dotted down in the Calcutta Cup making it no surprise to see him collect 115 metres with four clean breaks and a quartet of English defenders beaten.
Wing Tommy Seymour was the next best Scot in terms of metres made (72), he also beat two defenders, with Stuart Hogg also reaching a half century.
Jones didn’t limit his work solely to fine attacking play as he also made 13 tackles though it was lock Jonny Gray who led the Scottish defensive effort with 24 hits.
England had more of the ball in Edinburgh (56% possession) but Jonny May was restricted to just 68 metres by the Scottish defence while No.8 Nathan Hughes made 54.
Wales tackle, tackle and tackle again
Ireland had an amazing 69 per cent possession at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday and had territory for 75 per cent of the entire match.
It’s no wonder then than Wales were forced to make 208 successful tackles from 225 attempts compared to Ireland’s 77 from 89 during the 80 minutes.
Aaron Shingler made 22 of those tackles and was ably supported by Josh Navidi and captain Alun Wyn Jones (both 20), while Ross Moriarty and Cory Hill weren’t far behind with 19 each.
Hadleigh Parkes made 18 in the centres while even prop Samson Lee racked up 16 hits – four more than Ireland’s top tackler Dan Leavy was required to make.
Ireland still managed to score five tries in Round 3 though, two of which went to Jacob Stockdale as the winger made 83 metres, three clean breaks and beat one defender.
Rob Kearney carried for 69 metres while try-scorers Bundee Aki and Leavy both beat four defenders in the 37-27 success in Dublin.
Grosso enjoys memorable night
Remy Grosso certainly enjoyed his first France start in the Championship as he made an impressive 105 metres against Italy including four defenders beaten and four clean breaks.
His teammate at No.8 Marco Tauleigne also had plenty of carry success as he gained 76 metres and beat two Italian defenders under the Friday night lights.
France controlled possession (63%) and territory (66%) in Marseille as Italy, like Wales, were forced to make over 200 tackles.
Hooker Leonardo Ghiraldini made 20 successful hits with Alessandro Zanni (19), Maxime Mbanda (18), Sergio Parisse (18) and prop Andrea Lovotti (17) not far behind.
