De Ja Vu for Italy 

France 40-7 Italy

In their previous meeting, Italy managed to hold off France well without really firing a shot in attack. That story repeated itself on Saturday afternoon. France were only up 5-0 at half-time before winning the second half 35-7. Italy's defence was strong but it was also helped by some clunky attacking play by the hosts. Once France got into their stride, there was only ever going to be one winner. Both of these teams will need to pick up their form before next week if they are to avoid defeats away from home.

A game of two halves at the Allianz

England 33-12 Ireland

England kicked off their quest for yet another 6 Nations title with a 33-12 win over Ireland at the Allianz Stadium, Twickenham. The game started well for the Red Roses as they were able to use their pack to bulldoze Ireland early on, leading to two tries for Sarah Bern and one for Amy Cokayne. Ireland, meanwhile, made several mistakes in the first half which prevented them from getting into the game. Their Line-out, in particular, was a disaster. 

In the second half, Ireland were much better. Their defence was more co-ordinated and their physicality went up a couple of levels. England struggled to adjust to this and ended up losing the dominance that they had enjoyed at the beginning of the match. Ellie Kildunne and Jess Breach both scored in the second half, putting England's added creativity on full display. Ireland responded well and managed to draw the second half 12-12 so they can take some confidence into their next match. 

England will also have to deal with long-term injuries to Natasha Hunt and Morwenna Talling, who are both out of the tournament entirely. Hunt's injury will likely see Flo Robinson come onto the bench. The injury to Talling will cause some big issues for Scott Mitchell. He will either have to rely on players like Balogun, Short or Verghese, who are inexperience at test level, or move a back row player into the second row as he did with Lutui against Ireland. Neither of these options are ideal but it's a good time to find out exactly how deep England's depth at scrum-half and lock actually is.

Scotland scrape past scrappy Wales

Wales 19-24 Scotland

When Wales play Scotland, the margin of victory tends to be very small. This weekend was no exception. Wales started well and used their pack dominance to score two tries with props and forcing a yellow card from a maul. Scotland responded with some good play out wide that led to a try for Chloe Rollie. This was a true clash of styles and, at half-time, it was Wales who came out on top. 

In the second half, Scotland took the reigns of the game and got themselves into a strong lead. The only blip was an injury to Emma Orr in the 53rd minute. Scotland found themselves holding a 24-12 lead with 10 minutes left before Williams crossed over for Wales and the deficit was slashed to just 5 points. Wales threatened from there but were ultimately held well by Scotland until the 80th minute when the game looked to be over. It was at this moment that Scotland won a penalty on the edge of the Welsh 22 and opted to kick at goal to remove Wales's losing bonus point. Helen Nelson then missed the penalty and, to make matters worse, failed to get enough power on the ball to kick it out of play. This allowed Wales to regain possession and mount a final attack. After being held in the 22 for several phases, they eventually broke free and ended up earning a penalty, resulting in a yellow card for Demi Swann. Wales then went for a line-out from which they threw the ball out of play, ending the game rather abruptly in an anticlimactic fashion. 

Scotland will be thanking their lucky stars that they were able to leave Cardiff with 4 points and will now look ahead to returning to Scotland to host England next Saturday. Meanwhile, Wales will have to pick themselves up before hosting France.