Remember the training sessions the All Blacks held last year where they had players running around with cameras strapped to their heads? Not to be outdone, check out this pearler of a press release from the Scottish 6 Nations team.

The Scotland rugby team has been taking advantage of technology pioneered by club and community rugby sponsor, Scottish Hydro, and their partners at technology firm, Cyberhawk Innovations, to offer a groundbreaking perspective on preparations for this weekend's 6 Nations opener against France at Murrayfield.

The flying Cyberhawk drones, nicknamed 'The Flying Scot' after Scotland's joint record try-scorer, Ian Smith, are kept stable by eight independent rotor-blades, managed by an on-board GPS.

The units are fitted with video equipment capable of relaying live action and still images to the team's coaches and video analysts from up to 300m above the training ground, or from directly behind the players themselves, to offer a player's view of the action.

So you're using cutting-edge robotics to make your team better? Couldn't you have just cut out the middleman and strapped giant robot legs to Chris Paterson? And has Northern Hemisphere rugby just resorted to the gimmick? First it was 3DTV, now it's flying robots... What's next, the Dallas Cowboys' cheerleaders?

From the Guardian...

The Six Nations countries drew a blank in the first full year of professionalism, 1996, but the majority of those fixtures were played in the southern hemisphere and none involved England. They have all had a crack this year but, unless England provide the biggest upset of the decade against New Zealand at Twickenham on Saturday, or Wales pick up a third win over a Tri-Nations side in the professional era at Australia's expense on the same afternoon at the Millennium Stadium, it will be, barring a draw, 20-0 to the southern hemisphere.

Comments on this one are good. According to some Northern rugby fans...

Most people in the north accept that the south is ahead in terms of skill and quality, but they also believe (rightly) that the north is streets ahead when it comes to passion, excitement and putting bums on seats. The technique is of higher quality in the south, but the spectacle is of infinitely higher quality in the north.

Gregor Paul latched onto this very point last week. Essentially, he argued that rugby in New Zealand is devoid of passion and elan. It is obsessive (to a degree that is almost psychotic) and thus thoroughly one-dimensional.

Most Englishmen wouldn't swap the passionate, ever-changing European scene for the tedious, repetitive SANZAR scene no matter how many 40 point shellackings we take at Twickers.

I suppose ultimately it depends on whether one takes the mature, civilised, old continent outlook of treating sport as a glorious irrelevance or the gauche, crass, new world outlook of treating sport as some sort of measure of national virility.

Gauche! Crass! Moi!?

So what's happening in the Six Nations tournament? I don't either. But Maire does and she's put up a good summary in the forums here and laid out all of this weekend's teams here (except Italy).

Here's your squads for the Six Nations opening weekend. 

England
Iain Balshaw, Paul Sackey, Mike Tindall, Toby
Flood, David Strettle, Jonny Wilkinson, Andy Gomarsall, Luke Narraway,
Lewis Moody, James Haskell, Steve Borthwick, Simon Shaw, Phil Vickery
(captain), Mark Regan, Andrew Sheridan.

Reserves: Lee Mears, Matt Stevens, Ben Kay, Tom Rees, Richard Wigglesworth, Daniel Cipriani, Lesley Vainikolo.

Wales
Lee Byrne, Shane Williams Sonny Parker, Gavin Henson, Mark Jones, James Hook,
Mike Phillips, Ryan Jones (captain), Martyn Williams, Jonathan Thomas, Ian
Gough, Alun Wyn Jones, Adam Jones, Huw Bennett, Duncan Jones.

Reserves: Matthew Rees, Gethin Jenkins, Ian Evans, Alix Popham, Gareth
Cooper, Stephen Jones, Tom Shanklin.

Ireland
Girvan Dempsey, Andrew Trimble, Brian
O'Driscoll (captain), Gordon D'Arcy, Geordon Murphy, Ronan O'Gara, Eoin Reddan,
Denis Leamy, David Wallace, Simon Easterby, Malcolm O'Kelly, Donnacha O'Callaghan,
John Hayes, Rory Best, Marcus Horan.

Reserves: Bernard Jackman, Tony Buckley, Mick O'Driscoll, Jamie Heaslip,
Peter Stringer, Paddy Wallace, Rob Kearney.

Scotland

Backs - Mike Blair, Chris Cusiter, Nick De
Luca, Andrew Henderson, Rory Lamont, Dan
Parks, Chris Paterson, Hugo Southwell, Nikki
Walker, Simon Webster

Forwards - John Barclay, Kelly Brown, Dave Callam, Ross Ford, Jim Hamilton,
Nathan Hines, Allister Hogg, Allan Jacobsen, Gavin Kerr, Scott MacLeod, Euan
Murray, Fergus Thomson, Jason White.

France and Italy have (probably) also announced their squads but I couldn't find them
 

Pipping the post just hours before the kick-off of this week's Super 14 matches, the Dropkicks share their thoughtful and insightful analysis on not only the Super 14, but the Six Nations, Formula One, the Cricket World Cup, US College Basketball, and pick their athlete and dick of the week...

Download Episode 2007/09.

Returned from their voyages to alternate realties, the Dropkicks return with more stunning insights into the Super 14, the Six Nations, and any other sport issues that take their fancy.

Download Episode 2007/08.

The Dropkicks discuss week 6 of the Super 14, some Six Nations (record try-scoring!), Roger Federer's defeat to a 14 year old Russian, Cricket World Cup (hat-tricks galore!), Tiger Wood's death, and Michael Schumacher's surprise return to Formula 1.

Download Episode 2007/07.

Actually managing to post the episode to the blog before this week's round of matches? Priceless.

Noizyboy, Sideline Mike and Tall Timber Tibby make do without The Mallet and Mouth of the South this week. In the surprisingly noisy environs of the Wellington Library cafe, the lads discuss the latest round of the Super 14, the Six Nations, and the Vatican World Cup of Soccer - The Clericus Cup.

Download Episode 2007/06.

Here it is, virtually (and in fact, actually) un-edited due to time constraints on the currently over-worked Dropkicks editor, episode 2 of the 2007 Dropkicks season, featuring the build-up to the first round of the Super 14, Six Nations, Tri-Series Cricket, mountain-biking (Vanessa Quinn), Dicks of the Week (Turkey Shooters), Athlete of the Week (Jacob Oram) and Roger Federer still being awesome.

Download Episode 2007/02.