The players will need to dig deep in this year’s championship with no such thing as certainty in rugby during the pandemic
These are surreal times and the Six Nations has certainly never seen a tournament launch like the unique 2021 Gogglebox edition. Even before Ireland’s Andy Farrell and Johnny Sexton started mouthing inaudibly from
Dublin and the local IT staff began pulling their hair out, this year’s virtual babble-fest was always set to be a fraught enterprise and patience will be a virtue on every front in the next two months.
In the absence of live spectators to supply the surround sound, the passion and the off-field colour, the players will need to dig particularly deep as they seek to defeat bubble fatigue as well as the opposition. Already two players – Italy’s Matteo Minozzi and England’s Joe Marler – have chosen to opt out completely and, with lockdown protocols even tighter than in the autumn, the winning team will probably be the one whose players most enjoy each other’s company.