July Internationals 16/7/22

Rugby is, at an abstracted level, always a game of making and taking chances. We tackle about tackle efficiency, lineout success rate, scrum penalties, turnovers and so on but they all boil down to making scoring opportunities, taking them or denying those chances. The matches that I actually watched, and to a lesser extent the highlights as well, seem to highlight that aspect of the game more than normal.

All Blacks v Ireland

For most of the first half, Ireland created chances and took some of them, the All Blacks defence wasn’t terrible, while the Irish defence just prevented the ABs attack from creating chances at all. For most of the second half that reversed but just when it looked like the AB were going to come from behind and win the Irish scored again and that was it.

Smarter people than me have been saying that the ABs have a really antiquated defensive essentially lack of system. They rely on their fitness and fight for every scrap of the pitch. This still works against most teams but certainly Ireland and possibly France have defensive systems that can cope with the ABs attack and attacking systems that we know can break the other defences and seem to be good enough to create and exploit the ABs fairly regularly too.

Australia v England

For the first chunk of the game, 20 minutes or more, the Wallabies were camped inside the England 22 creating lots of chances but they converted none of them. England eventually escaped, scampered down the other end and scored. It might only have been a penalty that time, but it was pretty emblematic of the course of the game. Although Australia actually pulled ahead after that, it never felt like it was enough and so it proved.

This victory will paper over the cracks for Jones but they’re still there. Smith picked up dropped ball and ran it in for a try that swung the momentum back for the last time. Where were the support players? Australia have a decent pack these days but England still think they can bully everyone and build a team around that belief. Ireland weren’t bullied in NZ, Wales weren’t bullied in SA, England didn’t bully Australia. Oops.

South Africa v Wales

South Africa chopped and changed again but this time it was much closer to the RWC winning squad. That quality and understanding showed over time, although the score line somewhat flatters them. As in the previous matches, SA created a load of chances, Wales denied them and denied them and denied them. Wales created a few chances and generally took them, lineout woes were their biggest reason for not converting chances into points. After three games of this, the strain showed and Wales finally cracked in the last ten minutes of so, letting the margin of victory run out to 16 points. Shame, but a great series and far closer than anyone expected.

Argentina v Scotland

There is a cliché in rugby that each side will have its purple patches through the game. This seems to be super true of this match with the scoring chances, and the lead, see-sawing back and forth in the first half. In the second half Scotland ran up a 15 point lead, then gifted the ball back to Los Pumas far too often who gleefully stole points and ultimately the lead at the death. If Townsend wasn’t already bald, he would be after this.

Happy Coaches

Farrell really has to be at the top of the list. Just over a week ago, Ireland had never won a test in NZ, now they’ve won a series.

Cheika is really in at number two. Although he’s known to the players, he only had a few weeks as head coach and he’s won the series. Can’t say fairer than that.

Pivac is in at three for me. He’s got Wales' first win in SA, it was a super competitive series at the home of RWC winners and could easily have been a series win. It wasn’t quite but after the injury-ravaged but still disappointing 6N this was a pride-restoring result for the side, the nation and him. There is still stuff to work on but his system can rattle SA in SA. That’s a good place to build from.

Nienaber at four. Upset to have lost one, happy to have one the series. Some serious questions about his wider squad though.

Jones at five. He won the series, papered over the cracks for his critics. Parts of his team looked better. But this is not a side that wins next year’s 6N or goes deep in the RWC knock out stages. He knows that.

Rennie at six. He'll be ruing the one that got away both in terms of the series and the test. How did Australia mount so much pressure in both halves and fail to convert it into points? How did so many players throw so many poor passes? While there are on-going problems, some players are showing improvements and some of the issues his side have come from playing fourth or fifth choice players in some places thanks to injury. Some also come from playing first choices players who just didn’t play well though. But at least you can rotate those players out for your second choice players and hope they perform better!

Then I find it really hard to separate Foster and Townsend. Both have jobs on the line after their run of defeats. Both sides are continuing to show the same problems in their team, which suggests the plans you’re asking the players to execute are not good. Townsend is somewhat more likely to keep his job, just because Scotland don’t have someone in position ready to take over. The Kiwis can choose to push Foster and roll in Razor Robinson, waiting in the wings and ready to go. He was there in 2019 and probably didn’t have a long enough track record as a head coach. He’s won everything except one title since (SR TT last year, he won ST Aotearoa that year) since then and you can’t deny he’s got a track record any longer.