The Rugby Championship 2022, Week 4

Quick Summary

This week saw the AB and SA trying to bounce back from bad defeats (from their perspective) last week and both matches played in pretty heavy rain. How would that affect the outcomes?

NZ v Argentina

The answer in Hamilton was that the rain would affect the sides incredibly unequally. If you watch the whole match, to a lesser extent even just the highlights, and watch Los Pumas you’d believe they were playing in the kind of weather that you can see spotting water on the camera lens and falling from the sky. They dropped a lot of passes, threw a lot of loose ball and, in essence, threw the game away. It might be almost a cliché that the AB thrive on turnover ball, but it’s not just lazy commentary, they still seem strike efficiently from anywhere on counterattack ball - part of their woes this year have been that teams have worked hard to avoid giving it to them and stifling any other form of attack. On the other side of the ball, if you watch the All Blacks, you would assume it was a gorgeous day for playing running rugby. From the start they ran, passed and offloaded without a care in the world and with hardly a ball going to ground. The few spillages we did see were all in close contact, caused by the weight of the tackle and you always see a few of those. While the Pumas gifting them possession certainly helped, just about everything I said they were missing to slow the Argentinian defensive line last week appeared too. (They definitely read my blog and stole my ideas, no rugby brains in New Zealand at all…) Mo’unga, Havili in particular (who kicked it 12 times this week compared to once last time) and Jordan were kicking the ball far more. Not usually terribly deep (although Mo’unga was still doing that too, as was Jordy when the occasion warranted it) but little chips and grubbers for players to run onto and regather. The support was there too, and this caused havoc as the AB attack was suddenly in the Pumas backfield, behind their defensive line and running riot.

The AB looked back to something like their best, Los Pumas looked like the side ranked 7th or so in the world up against them but the final score of 53-3 is not really a fair reflection of the match. Argentina were in positions to score far more often than that makes it seem but were held up once, had several other try scoring opportunities denied after multiple phases because they dropped the ball, got turned over or gave up a penalty. I think the AB missed one chance, maybe two, Los Pumas missed about four or five. Where last week they always stayed close, kicked their penalties and ground out a thoroughly deserved win, this week they were 17-0 down before their first scoring opportunity came along, then something like 31-3 down before their next - they had to go for tries, and couldn’t breach the AB defences. You would also think that the Pumas’ defensive effort was terrible. While it did fall off, it was still at the 90% mark, down from 96% last week. This wasn’t a case of the AB bursting through tackles or defenders falling off them, rather the ABs chipped over the line, offloaded just before or out of the tackles and their passes stuck, went to players in space, and boom, there’s another try.

I’m sure this will paper over the cracks for another week, two in fact, but if NZ don’t run out and win the rest of their matches this year, it will still be a failure for them. This could be the first match of that infamous corner they need to turn, but they need to basically win from here to the final in Paris next October for Foster to really redeem himself. An odd loss along the way is OK - maybe the “youngsters” to play Wales and lose, but then bounce back and play England with the seniors and win, lose one in TRC next summer too but more than that is not going to go down well. I don’t believe the AB under this coach have that in them though. Foster has been a 50% coach throughout his career and the AB look like they’re on track for that sort of record against Tier 1 sides. That means they might exit in the QF in Paris…

Australia v SA

This too was played in the rain but it didn’t seem as one sided in its impact as the previous match. Neither side seemed unduly affected. There was, perhaps, a bit more spilt ball than you might expect but not hugely so. White had a pretty hostile reception from the SA fans at first, after his bad theatrics of last week, but that was both fine and just fun, no impact on the game. SA had Willemese, who is really a part time 10, in for the injured Pollard, and he really looked the part, he’s certainly a better fit for their game plan, and for getting the backs involved, than Jantjes, and he seemed to get the backs going better than Pollard last week when the bomb wasn’t the answer. His goal kicking was a bit errant but his kicking for the chasers was spot on. I’m guessing this greater variety of play was a call from the coaches, but it might just be how he plays his club rugby? I haven’t seen him in the URC so I’m not sure. Really that’s the story of the game. The Boks lined the Wallabies up, caught the high bombs by putting them into positions where the Wallaby back three couldn’t compete properly and the Boks moved from there to smoothly attack whether through their forwards or their backs. They scored four tries, one to each winger, one to a centre and one to a forward, which is a pretty nice balance. The Wobs fans are going to be up in arms but, honestly, it could have been a LOT worse, they only conceded four tries but faced a lot of possession and territory - while that’s not always a good marker of points scored, if SA dominate both they usually run away on the scoreboard too. The Australian defensive systems still held pretty solid. When you have a team that is on the front foot like that, scoring against them gets harder and harder; they hounded the mistakes and forced them, turnovers, penalties and tackles, but the effort was there, it was just that SA were hungrier on the day, stinging after the smackdown last week.

Looking Forward

The table, at first glance, looks like normal. NZ on top, Argentina on the bottom. It’s only when you look in the last column, points, that things look odd. That goes 10, 9, 9, 9. Everyone has won-2, lost-2. NZ are top courtesy of a losing BP in week 1 and a winning BP today. I think the table I’m looking at is wrong, and SA should be second on PD with +12, then Australia with -24 then Argentina with -27. It’s that close. We have a week off, then NZ and Australia clash home and away, for a chance to win TRC and the Bledisloe Cup. SA and Argentina also clash home and away. The way these results have gone, I have no confidence in my ability to predict the outcomes of those matches. You would expect NZ and SA to win them both. But if you’d asked me eight days ago I would moderately confidently have predicted NZ to keep their 100% home record against Argentina and tipped SA to overturn their drought in Australia then. This is the most open this championship has been in years, perhaps ever, and it’s great. Unless the AB do two huge BP wins over Australia (which is possible) it might well not be over until the last match, which is great.