The first round of the northern hemisphere leg of the Nations Championship produced plenty of evidence that the teams in the top tier of world rugby are implementing the policy of follow the leader when it comes to evolving their game ahead of next year’s Rugby World Cup in Australia.
The world champion Springboks are comfortably top of the World Rugby rankings after establishing a buffer by winning the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series against the All Blacks earlier this year. They are also on top of the southern hemisphere pool in the Championship, on the same number of points as New Zealand, the only other unbeaten team in the competition, but ahead on superior points differential.
Their 59 point win over Italy in Turin that started their northern tour coupled with the 22 point All Black win over Scotland and the 30 point advantage they had before the game means the Bok advantage is now 67 points with two games to go.
HAVE TO WIN AGAINST FRANCE AND IRELAND
That’s a lot of points for the Kiwis to make up and the form of England, who they will face in their last pool game, against Australia on Sunday suggests a big win at Twickenham is unlikely. So that means it could all be cut and dried this week then? No, of course not, because the Boks face a tough task finishing off against France in Paris this Friday and then Ireland in Dublin a week later and a loss in either game would lessen the likelihood of any count out over which team makes the main final going down to points differential.
The Springboks need to win both games, the All Blacks need to win against England, it could all come down to the wire on the last weekend of pool play, but it is important to remember the other big angle of this series of November internationals - the build-up to the RWC that is now less than 11 months away.
In that regard, the Boks, while they can be flattered at the attempts at imitation, can consider their quest for a three-peat at the RWC to be under threat from teams that are now aping them and which made a clear statement this weekend that they are absorbing the lessons of what they have a) either seen or b) had inflicted on themselves by the Boks.
ALL BLACKS RELIED ON SCRUM TO GET THEM OUT OF JAIL
The All Blacks, after four tough games against the South Africans in August and September, head that list, with there being some irony in the fact that the New Zealanders need to turn to their clearly superior scrum to bale them out on a couple of occasions during their ultimately comfortable win over Scotland at Murrayfield.
The All Blacks executing a double shove at scrum time to get a penalty was not something you would have expected back in the early stages of the RGR tour, meaning prior to the test matches, when the All Black coach Dave Rennie was actively trying to influence a de-powering of the scrum by match officials.
It was no secret that Rennie was going to drive an attempt to get the laws changed to make the scrum and maul less influential, in other words try to neuter the SA strengths, at the latest meeting of top players and role players to discuss the laws. It is understood that the meeting has already happened and Rennie/New Zealand didn’t get anywhere, so perhaps what we saw in Edinburgh was an example of someone deciding that if you can’t beat them, then join them.
Certainly the All Blacks, while still very poor at defending a driving maul, have made a big attempt to add that to their attacking options and they appeared much improved at executing their own maul against the Scots. Indeed, the Scots also joined the party, and it is the reason that hooker Ewan Ashman became the first Scottish international to score a hat-trick of tries against the All Blacks.
POLLOCK JOINS THE HYBRID PLAYER CLUB
England of course have always had more than just a small semblance of a power game, which they executed perfectly in the big win over the Wallabies that brought the curtain down on the opening weekend of November internationals on Sunday. But they too showed a lot of elements of the Bok game in the good things they did.
And then there was Henry Pollock, normally a loose-forward, moonlighting as a wing, and doing it very impressively as he scored two good tries. With Erasmus and the Boks the hybrid player concept, which was introduced around Andre Esterhuizen, works in the opposite direction - Esterhuizen is a centre (backline player) who doubles as a forward.
Esterhuizen is not on this tour because of the injury he sustained playing a URC game on Cardiff’s tough 4G surface but there is talk now of a Bok loose-forward, this time Paul de Villiers, possibly getting time in the midfield.
POINTS DIFFERENTIAL CHASE DOES MAKE IT MORE INTERESTING
There has been much rightful criticism of the Nations Championship concept, with some teams not playing home games at all and others playing with under-strength teams at various stages of the competition, but what it has done is satisfy the demand to make games feel more relevant or give them more meaning.
That was evident in the way the Boks appeared to be chasing points differential momentum in Turin. They succeeded in that mission in the first half but will be rightly disappointed they couldn’t convert into a much bigger victory in the second half. Had the Boks won by 80, New Zealand would now almost be out of it. At least when it comes to points differential.
However, given how slow the Welsh forwards in particular were in their match against Japan, a big win for the All Blacks could well be on the cards in Cardiff in round 5. That said, it needs to be remembered that it is not just a case of the Kiwis needing to make up 67 points. It is 67 points plus whatever the Boks win by against France (if they don’t win it becomes irrelevant) and Ireland.
So, if for example, the Boks win against those teams with the same margins they enjoyed in the corresponding games last year, it would be a 15 point win over France plus 11 over Ireland makes 26, which you then add to the 67 to make 93. It’s by no means easy then for the All Blacks, but for them and the Boks the bottom line should really be that they win the big games to come.
If the Boks beat France on Friday 17-16 without getting a bonus point that would still be a significant result on the road to next year’s World Cup regardless of what missing out on a bonus point might do to their chances of winning the Championship. That’s one other strike against the concept - there’s always a bit of distortion that gets introduced when bonus points - four tries and for losing by less than 7 - are introduced to what should really be a “the only thing that matters is that we win” attitude at test match level.
Fourth round Nations Championship results
Ireland 42 Argentina 12
Italy 7 South Africa 66
Scotland 21 New Zealand 43
Wales 28 Japan 21
France 54 Fiji 14
England 45 Australia 22