THE RBS Six Nations arrives on Saturday and what a way to kick-off the campaign for Dylan Hartley’s England by facing France at Twickenham.

That gets the adrenaline rushing straight away – especially as they have a bone to pick with us after having lost last year in Paris.

England, unbeaten in 14 outings, will be out to maintain their winning form and they could take the world record away from the All Blacks of 18 straight wins by the end of this campaign.

I am sure Maro Itoje will be wanting to make his mark on the game and we have the magic of Jonathan Joseph, who I’m sure is going to strike some form of fear in the French backs minds.

So please make sure you make the effort to go to your local club to watch the games as you can’t beat the atmosphere in a rugby club for the Six Nations.

The following Saturday England clash with Wales in Cardiff so what a couple of tremendous matches in store as they look to defend their Six Nations title.

The other games are Scotland against Ireland at Murrayfield on Saturday, and Italy at home to Wales the following day.

On the local scene, I must say well done to Redingensians Rams, who claimed their ninth scalp of the season with an excellent win at Barnstaple on Saturday.

They moved back up to eighth in the National Two South table and host rock bottom Exmouth this week.

The match of the day is at Holme Park, where my boys Reading take on town rivals Reading Abbey in South West One East. We want revenge for last October’s 9-8 defeat at Rose Hill.

I’m encouraged by last Saturday’s performance at Royal Wootton Bassett where we just lost out in a tight game. It was 5-5 at half-time and while the guys put in a hard day’s graft, our errors allowed Bassett to snatch victory.

Unfortunately we now have to be realistic and accept relegation is almost inevitable as we are 20 points away from the safety zone and there are only nine games left to play.

Meanwhile Abbey crashed at Witney which was quite a surprise as they did not even get a losing bonus point. But, I don’t think they need to worry about any relegation issues.

Finally, well done to Berkshire Shire Hall, who crushed visitors Farnham Royal in the BB&O Championship to remain third in the table.

They don’t have a game this weekend but they are having a fine season and I hope they can keep it up.