LONG READ Underpants, duvet covers and Louis Bielle-Biarrey

If the 2025 Six Nations has taught me anything, it’s this: I need more Louis Bielle-Biarrey in my life. Much more. I want a Louis Bielle-Biarrey mug with his mug on it; I want a credit card at La Banque Bielle-Biarrey. I want a 24hr LBBTV Channel and I want the formula for the speed of light rewritten from (C = 1 / ??? × ??) as C = LB². I want merchandise. Lots of it. I want Louis Bielle-Biarrey underpants, duvet covers and, above all, a red scrum cap for whenever it rains or, for that matter, whenever it doesn’t. I want to move next-door to LBB in UBB; I want Louis Bielle-Biarrey to marry my daughter.

Hyperbole? Well, perhaps just a little. A desperate attempt by a sad old git to try to inject some reflected relevance and excitement into his otherwise insignificant existence? No argument there. But while, on sober reflection, offering The Princess as some kind of medieval chattel is totally beyond the pale – and, hands up, I apologise for that – I’m dead serious about the duvet covers.

Where shall we start? With the gas? With the sheer vitesse of the bloke? Frankly, his fast twitch fibres should be preserved for medical science. One second, he’s right in front of you; the next he’s just a puff of smoke and all you’re holding is a hyphen. It defies physics. He can leave a defender for dead quicker than 20,000 volts and, given the top-end speed isn’t exactly pedestrian, once he’s gone, he’s a vapour trail. Louis ‘Beep-Beep’.

Then there’s the skill-set. He can throw slick, cut out passes off either hand from any position in the back three. He can step you in a shoe-box. He can hoof the ball 40 metres or, as he proved in Italy for Leo Barré’s second try, grubber and regather in the space of just two. He can catch and pass with one hand, off-balance, in the same movement – Italy again – and frankly, make good defenders look like bags of old soup bones. He is poetry’s answer to prose.

But it’s the uncoachable stuff that truly sets him apart; not least that instinctive ability to be not where the ball is but where it’s about to be in five seconds. His support running and his cheat-lines speak volumes not just for his work-rate but for his wits; his awareness of space, his nose for an opening and that priceless ability to finish; left wing, right wing, wrong wing, wherever. No matter how tight the space or how awkward the bounce, his phenomenal hand-eye co-ordination makes it look simple. Except, of course, it isn’t.

It was Bielle-Biarrey’s – record-breaking – try at the start of the second half which settled French jitters; it was his delicious half-break and off-load – he also set a new record for try involvements – which created the title-sealing score for Yoram Moefana.

What you’ve also got to love about Bielle-Biarrey is his unselfishness. However likely he may be to score or to make a killer break, he’ll cheerfully give the ball to a likelier option. His standing jump is remarkable under the aerial game – those fast twitch fibres again – and while he’s a kilo or two shy of a tonne of bricks – let’s be honest, you’ll find more meat on a wasp – his defensive reads and his technique more than bail him out in the tackle. As for that cross kick to Damian Penaud in the shadow of his own try-line against Ireland; truly, genius is the simple option which no one else sees until afterwards. And the kid’s 21. Just how much better will he be in five years’ time?

Saturday au Stade was all of the above. It was Bielle-Biarrey’s – record-breaking – try at the start of the second half which settled French jitters; it was his delicious half-break and off-load – he also set a new record for try involvements – which created the title-sealing score for Yoram Moefana. Add in a T-bone tackle on Finn Russell which transported the Scot back in time to February and, yet again, it was a barnstorming display.

Rather less perfect were the rest of the French team. Deserved Kings of the Continent, the coronation was scruffy; a game won by pressing the beast button. And they rode their luck, not least with the ludicrous yellow card shown to Peato Mauvaka. Nutting folk off-the-ball is a straight red and if the bunker review is offering on-field officials a cop-out – and the evidence is mounting – then we should consider binning it.

Scotland were fabulous; infuriating, it should be said, but fabulous. Quite how they sow so much yet reap so little, clearly, baffles them as much as everyone else. Individually there were heroes aplenty, not least The Brothers Fagerson, but the fact that both went the full 80 minutes tells you all you need to know. Scotland just don’t have the depth in a world where, as France proved, depth is now decisive.

England didn’t just upend Wales but the much of the Lions’ Squad Selection. The entire pack will be right in the conversation.

In Cardiff, England were utterly terrifying, proof that, like bankruptcy, riches are something else that happens gradually and then all at once. Challenged beforehand by Head Coach, Steve Borthwick to ‘play big’, England played enormous in an absolute sod-you of a performance. On the day, they looked more French than France and having been scolded long and hard for being all broken eggshells and no omelette, here finally was the nourishment which England supporters – and, you sense, players – have been craving. Certainly Ellis Genge’s towel-snapping, post-match tweet – ‘To everyone who’s been behind us this tournament, thank you … for the rest of the old mob, you know what to do’ – summed up the sense of glorious vindication.

England didn’t just upend Wales but the much of the Lions’ Squad Selection. The entire pack will be right in the conversation, Fin Smith is banging so hard on the door he might just take it clean off its hinges and George Ford’s 20-minute cameo was both eye-catching and intriguing; it had its obvious context but, bang on the gain-line, there are few better. True, Ford did once turn up at Andy Farrell’s house wearing a St Helens shirt – ‘get that off or get out’ – but, you’d hope, that’s been forgiven if not forgotten. We’ll find out in May.

For Wales, despair is where the words run out; exhibit ‘A’, the shot of Adam Jones backstage after the final whistle. If you haven’t seen it, the poor bloke looks almost haunted. First half chances went begging – Blair Murray appears to be cursed – but as powerful a force as emotional energy can be, it can’t resist the irresistible and Wales could make absolutely no ground in the grunt game. Quite how they solve this – or their many other dilemmas – isn’t immediately obvious but the WRU needs to take a deep breath followed by decisive action.

Ireland, too, have some head-scratching to do. Yes, they left Rome with a bonus point and with umpteen ‘tries’ rubbed out but the cutaways of an exasperated Simon Easterby were telling. Italy copped two mindless yellow cards and one 20-minute red, lost three of their largest lumps to injury within the first 30 minutes yet were still threatening to snatch it in the closing minutes. ‘Disjointed’ best summed up Ireland’s performance and, indeed, their campaign. Their tilt at history fizzled out and not winning the title cost them a whopping €6million in prize-money which, hopefully, the IRFU wasn’t budgeting on. On top of this, several of their Lions’ hopefuls might have a sleepless seven weeks and their kids finished plum last in the U20 Six Nations. There’s some pondering to be done.

 While we’re griping, can we please ban co-commentators and pundits on both channels from using the words ‘we’ and ‘us’? You’re being paid to analyse matches with both eyes, not just one.

Italy remain a fascination. Every single try they scored in this tournament – and, if memory serves, the last one – was a small blaze of fireworks; Capuozzo, Brex, Menoncello, Ioane, all came up with dazzling finishes. But none of Italy’s scores was a pick-and-go. Or a catch-and-drive. Not one. Indeed, of the ten they bagged, the only forward to contribute was Ross Vintcent, who’s racehorse quick and proved it with his 40-metre gallop through the English at Twickenham. All of which tells you everything you need to know about where Italy are at. Like Scotland, like Wales; no dent, no depth, no dice.

But they contributed mightily to a Six Nations which set try-scoring records and which, glory be, will remain free-to-air for the next four years, the one shame being that ITV, again, gets the largest and choicest slices of the pie. Guys, get all your boots on the ground, will you? The closing night in Paris, the opening night in Paris, the title decider in Dublin; their studio was nowhere near any of them. It looks cheapskate and it diminishes the occasion. And while we’re griping, can we please ban co-commentators and pundits on both channels from using the words ‘we’ and ‘us’? You’re being paid to analyse matches with both eyes, not just one.

France’s title, then, as many foretold, and given they’re at home next year to both England and Ireland, there’ll be plenty foretelling a Slam to back it up. But it’s been a Six Nations where deep divisions are emerging between those who have heft to spare and those who don’t. There’s nothing necessarily new in this – rugby’s always been a collision sport – but the extent to which the more powerful teams are now exploiting it with 7:1 or 6:2 benches feels like a quantum shift. All the more reason to cherish the little guys and the likes of Louis Bielle-Biarrey or, as Shaun Edwards calls him, ‘Looey Bell-Berry’. I’m hoping my new, red scrum cap will be here by Friday.