Autumn Internationals 2022 Week 2

12/11

• Italy v Australia

What is there to say about this match? Australia seemed to take it for granted that they’d win and made a bucket full of changes that, in essence, put their B-team out. This seemed foolish in light of Italy having the tenacity to beat Wales at home in March and the nous and physicality to demolish Samoa last week. So it proved. Italy played with gusto, skill, flair but also an abrasive edge. On the other hand, with so many changes, Australia looked sloppier than normal, although many of the same errors were still there , suggesting they’re coached system errors.

If the Italian kickers had their boots on - between them they missed 14 points, a lot of which were easy - this would have been comfortable. You also have to wonder what might have been if Garbisi had been fit. Apart from his kicking I don’t think Allan had a bad game, but Garbisi is just at another level in running the attack. Because Italy couldn’t pull away Australia pulled to within one point with a try with the final play. But the conversion went wide.

They say in sport you don’t deserve a result but Italy really did so much more, except with their penalty kicks, that it seemed like justice was served.

Capuozzo had a match to remember and while he still doesn’t look old enough to play senior rugby, he certainly delivers on the pitch, on both sides of the ball.

• Ireland v Fiji

I didn’t watch this game.

I expected more of a blowout than 35-17. It wasn’t a hugely changed side, although there were a number of changes from last week (I think it’s five or six in the starting side, certainly different to the 12 for Australia!) It makes me wonder about the Irish strength in depth. I did wonder if maybe it had rained, but the reports say Farrell described the Irish performance as “awful” so I’m stuck at wondering about strength in depth.

• England v Japan

This wasn’t quite one-way traffic but the result was never in doubt. England bounced back and looked much more cohesive. Japan, on the other hand, looked like a shadow of the side that played two weeks ago in Japan. England still have things to work on but they were much better on both sides of the ball. How much of that is a genuine improvement and how much the quality of the opposition? Argentina were really up for the scrap last week. Japan had flashes of playing nicely but it was never consistent enough to put pressure on the soap dodgers.

• Wales v Argentina

One of the talking points before this game was the back-three of Cuthbert, Dyer and LRZ (at 15). He’s still learning how to defend on the wing and here he is at full-back. But, it must be said, he looked mighty fine. Caught all the high balls and his pace when he can run kicks back and choose where to attack the line is a real threat.

Wales have always had a good defence, last week the All Blacks stretched that beyond breaking point. This week Los Pumas did not. Wales were a little unlucky not score more - and I do mean unlucky, odd passes not going to hand, last ditch tackles or even potential YC offences that disrupted their attacks at key moments and then letting the pressure drain away in the next attack with a mistake. On a different day more of those chances would have stuck and the margin would have been bigger.

This match didn’t really reveal much about Wales, nor I would suggest about Argentina. Rather it highlights just how terrible England were last week. They gifted points to Los Pumas and lost. Wales didn’t, and won.

Actually, this match did reveal one thing about Wales. In the first 15 minutes or so, Wales were on the wrong side of the whistle, particularly for offside in their own 22. This gave Argentina a 6-0 lead and BOK issued a formal warning to Wales. There were penalties after that, and a particularly stupid YC with about 15 to go, but the Welsh adjusted and basically didn’t give away another offside penalty all match. We complain about teams not adjusting to the referee's interpretation but Wales certainly did.

• France v South Africa

In a game with two red cards, one early (11’) and one fairly late (48’), it seems odd to say that I think they both had relatively little impact on the game. The loss of Peter Steph du Toit seemed to galvanise the Boks to lift their game. It may have changed when they used their subs, but it didn’t seem to dent their defensive efforts or their ball carrying. Impressive. The loss of Dupont after 48’ might have been expected to have more impact but, honestly, he’d been so tightly marked and shut down that, if anything it freed up the French - the Boks didn’t mark Lucu as tightly and he took advantage of that space. It’s important to note that you while might have high level discussions about whether the laws are correct in structure (particularly the one that saw the Dupont red) it’s hard to argue they were correctly applied.

The game itself went pretty much as you might have guessed, if you were feeling brave (I certainly wasn’t before the match). France played far, far better than last week. While it’s hard to say whether they were back to their absolute best or not, they were certainly close and they coped not only with the red card but injuries and HIAs galore in a brutal match. Those disruptions make it impossible to judge whether they were back to their best - the PSDT RC also Danty saw leave with a broken skull for example. At one point Baille limped off (with what we now know to be an inguinal hernia) and there were no pitch side medical staff because there was queue for HIAs!).

Injury toll aside, France played an expansive, attractive game, with a great deal of brute force around it. They scored a couple of good tries, one finished from short range, but created from a couple of really lovely bits of back play that saw them march up field very quickly from a lineout in their own half, the other a more conventionally power move. South Africa essentially seized on a couple of mistakes created by pressure but still kicked a huge amount of ball away in an effort to create that pressure which, mostly, didn’t work. The difference between the teams was goal kicking but, unlike in Ireland last week, this was not a negative for South Africa but a positive for France. The variety of South African kickers were excellent but Ramos was almost immaculate, missing one hard kick but landing six others as the Boks were punished for collapsing mauls, diving off their feet and more.

Within a year (including the end of last year’s Autumn Internationals to get NZ) France have now beaten ALL of the other top ten sides in rugby, while not losing to any of them. Ireland may remain number one by an accident of how the points work, but they can’t claim such an impressive record as that.

13/11

• Scotland v New Zealand

This was a game in three unequal parts. For eight minutes the All Blacks looked unstoppable, scoring a try from a lineout and a try from a lovely cross field kick. Then Scotland kicked into gear and while I’m not 100% sure of the decision for the YC and penalty try that started their comeback, I’m not really opposed to it either. It’s more about the way the ball bounced, taking it away from Hogg and ALB and making it less likely a try would have been scored than the rest of the process. By 14 minutes, both sides were scoring at a point a minute. For the hour after that yellow card started Scotland applied a load of pressure to New Zealand who, with one really important exception, looked confused and consequently inept. That one exception was their goal line defence which stopped three tries with turnovers and by winning penalties. They leaked enough penalties that Scotland started to build a seemingly comfortable lead, although New Zealand stayed fairly close due to Scottish errors. Then came a Scottish yellow card for a deliberate knock on 3m out from their try line. This incident was heightened by a swathe of All Black replacements. Perenara and Frizzell were the two that really made an appreciable difference over the players they directly replaced, although ALB and Ioane worked better off the better ball Perenara got to Barrett than Havili and ALB had. This caused a lift in everyone else and boom, the All Blacks roar back to life and score, take the lead and never look back. An eight point margin really reflects the fact that in modern rugby you truly can win if you defend really well and make the most of your opportunities. New Zealand did that and won. On another day they’d have made more opportunities and scored more but they did enough.

Happy Coaches

In the big picture Galthie has to be the happiest. Although he’s got a worrying injury list, he’s shown that his team can beat them all. Whether they can maintain that, cope with others looking to improve, injuries and all the rest we'll have to see. But for right now he’s got worries, yes, but mission accomplished.

Krowley next. Italy could easily have won by more but in the grand scheme of things that doesn’t matter. Italy have kicked on since beating Wales and while they’re still a work in progress, beating Australia is a big step forward.

Pivac next. Wales needed a performance after last week and they delivered.

Jones and Foster about equal. Foster more relieved than happy, Jones possibly happy but that’s tempered by “only Japan, having a bad day.”

Cheika is probably next. He’s running out of that honeymoon period and Argentina are still a bit “two steps forward, one step back” and this was definitely one step back. However, if they take two steps forward again next week, it will be a big win overall. Townsend is probably unhappy Scotland let the chance slip, but there’s a lot for him to be happy about and build on.

Rennie must be at the bottom really, losing to Italy, but Farrell was livid at how bad Ireland were.

I’m not sure where to put Neibenaur in this. You can put the case they pushed France close with their third string 10 and, although he can’t complain, 70 minutes with only 14 players. Lots of positives there. On the other hand, they’ve lost to Ireland and France in successive weeks. Their grip on the RWC looks increasingly tenuous as the good sides work out how to counter their limited tactics.