THE reports of the death of Six Nations pragmatism have been greatly exaggerated.

Now that the excitement has died down following Super Saturday, a madcap day featuring 27 tries in three fixtures, folk should be thinking more rationally.

There has been plenty of eager talk about the finale being a watershed for the tournament, that teams must go into the 2016 tournament with the same gung-ho spirit from the off.

Thankfully Wales defence Shaun Edwards was a voice of reason in the bowels of the Stadio Olimpico before Ireland had even finished their Murrayfield mission.

"If the defence is not very good you can attack like that but does anyone really think we can play like that against South Africa? Throw it around everywhere against them and we'd lose by 20 points," he said, seconds after Jonathan Sexton had inched the men in green 33-10 in front just past the hour mark.

On Friday there was a lot of excitement about the solar eclipse then the realisation that there would be a long wait for the next one. It's the same with Super Saturday, things just fell into place and we got a freakish trio of games as a result.

Next year the final day fixtures are reversed with Cardiff followed by Dublin followed by Paris. Don't expect the same points-fest.

And nor would bonus points magically make teams adopt an expansive approach from round one, which sees France hosting Italy, England at Murrayfield and Wales at the Aviva.

Watch European rugby and the opportunity to deny a rival a losing bonus point is as important as striving for four tries, given the home and away schedule. In this season's Champions Cup there were 21 four-try hauls (four against Treviso) and 20 for narrow defeats in 60 games.

When it comes to the Rugby Championship, established in 2012 when Argentina joined New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, there have been just 15 four-try bonus points in 36 games, nine of them bagged by the All Blacks. There have been 12 for narrow losses.

And the Wallabies – arguably the most attractive footballing side on the planet – have racked up four tries on just one occasion (a one-side 54-17 romp in Rosario in 2013). The Aussies would love every game to be Barbarians fare but it doesn't work like that in Test rugby.

Super Saturday was fun but it was a freak event featuring a trio of mismatches and now that the dust has settled what was the game of the tournament? Wales 23 Ireland 16 and an afternoon of ferocious defence.