Six things I learned from the Six Nations

1. The Power of the Mind

After four rounds of the championship, each country had become obsessed with the outcome and, as a consequence, developed a win-at-all-costs mentality. Once they each had a loss they had to reset and just look at what happened in the last weekend, what can be achieved once a clear target was put in front of teams.

The mind is the most powerful tool in a sports person’s locker. If Wales had needed to score another two tries or 12-14 points in Rome, I think they would have succeeded. Watching the game against Italy it was fascinating to see the way they relax subconsciously once their target had been reached after 60 minutes and how the Welsh invited trouble on themselves by switching off for even a really short period of time.