Review of the AIS 2022

Because this year the autumn internationals ended in a bit of a mess, with two games played after the end of the official test window, I’m going to stop and quickly give my opinion of the state of the teams after the whole run of matches. Note that not everyone played the same number of games, so I’m going to give their record too.

1. France. W3 L0 100%. A very rusty France relied on their winning habit to beat Australia, then relatively comfortably beat South Africa and finished at the canter with a nice victory over Japan at the latter's RWC base. France unbeaten this year, beaten all the other top ten sides since last year’s AIS and built some depth. Injuries could still rob them of lifting the cup, but they look like the favourites for next year.
2. Georgia W1 L0 100%. Like a lot of tier two sides, Georgia only get one or two games but what a game. Wales looked clueless in the second half, Georgia pounced and a famous upset. Georgia have both Wales and Australia in their pool for the RWC and have just served notice they could realistically win against at least one of them, if not both.
3. Italy W2 L1 67%. A big win over Samoa and a win over Australia before losing big to SA in a match where they were within 5 at halftime. Italy might still lack the legs for a long campaign and they can be bullied up front - in fairness lots of teams can be bullied up front by SA - Italy are definitely building. I still think next year’s RWC is too soon, but 2027 could be interesting, as could next year’s 6N for everyone except France and Ireland.
4. Ireland W3 L0 100%. Although Ireland won all their games they struggled against SA - ok. Then they struggled against Fiji and Australia. Farrell (snr) was not impressed and it really looks as if Ireland lose Sexton they’re in serious trouble.
5. New Zealand W2 L0 D1 83%. A comfortable win over Wales in the end, a come-from-behind-win over Scotland and it was looking good. Then they blow a 21 point lead to draw against England and those doubts, questions about selections and tactics and so on. On balance, since Schmidt joined the coaching team, the All Blacks have looked better. They’re not there yet but, unlike a normal cycle, it looks like they’re building at the right time.
6. South Africa W2 L2 50%. The Springboks have what seems like a poor record as defending RWC champions. However, they were close in Ireland and kicked poorly, fairly close in France despite an early RC, then pulled away from Italy in the second half to record a big win and not only dominated England, they unveiled a new style of play as well. There are a lot of positives here, and if Italy and Georgia hadn’t got those big wins, they’d be matching their spot on the WR rankings.
7. Australia W2 L3 40%. Australia may have got lucky against two sides unable to pick their normal team due to playing outside the test window, although they faced massive disruption due to injuries themselves. They still won, although it came down to a missed penalty and an unlikely four try burst against 13 men. They unexpectedly pushed France very close, and basically lost to a team that has the winning habit, lost to Italy and lost a really scrappy game to a rudderless Ireland. Without double checking, I’m pretty sure they ended up with a net 0 points difference on this tour. It might be +1. And the fans have reached the point that’s a successful tour… The fans have also reached the point that they’re really not sure about beating anyone except Portugal in next year’s pool matches.
8. Scotland W2 L2 50%. Oh Flower of Scotland, WTF went wrong? This could, probably should, have been W4, 100% and almost certainly the number 1 spot on this list. A missed, very kickable, penalty against Australia, ok, these things happen. Three turnovers between the 5m and try line against NZ meant that the AB were close and in the last 20 or so they roared back and ran out to win by eight. If you’d just converted one of those chances would the psychological burden have been too much for them to overcome your lead? I guess in some alternate universe they know the answer. Are there positives for Scotland? Yes. But in the matches that mattered they couldn’t find a way to win, and that’s got to be a huge negative. It’s just enough to slide them under Australia despite a better win percentage in my books.
9. Wales W1 L3 25%. Wales certainly have issues. They ought to have a 75% win rate but a terrible second half against Georgia and a terrible last 15 minutes against Australia when Wales were down to 13 cost them two victories. There are reasons that can be understood for that last 15 minute implosion against Australia. There are no good reasons for the second half against Georgia. Will Pivac go? He’s got some positives but public opinion is strongly against him after three really disappointing years.
10. England W1 D1 L2 37.5%. Although this is a better record than Wales, England beat Japan, lost to Argentina (who Wales beat), somehow fluked a draw against NZ after a card and after Farrell went off injured allowing Smith to run the attack which suddenly looked good. But coming from behind to score 21 and draw is not going to happen often. Then they get soundly bullied and beaten by SA, despite the Boks being down to 14 for the last 20 minutes. Wales may have imploded in two second halves but England looked clueless for almost all of three matches and bullied an out of sorts Japan. Like Pivac, Jones is facing a review. I think he’s got fewer excuses than Pivac: he had a bigger base to choose from and stubbornly stuck to bad players. Pivac has been picking players with basically no experience in multiple positions all autumn, and rarely picking his first choice players in more than half of the positions for the last 2.5 years. In 2020, for the 6N, when he last put out something like his preferred team, Wales won the tournament… 2020-22 inclusive, have England even finished in the top half?

I’m not ranking Japan, Samoa and Fiji. They all lost all their games, be that one or two. Too often they were also the match that clashed with someone else and so I didn’t watch it so it’s hard to comment really fairly. But for these teams, even Japan out of RWC years, getting to play tier one nations is rare. They’re building experience, building links within their team and more. Normally Georgia would be down here too, but that win puts them up in the highly successful teams.

With so many teams playing, I’m not brave enough to pick a team of the series. I am, however, going to mention some stars that would probably make my team if I was brave enough to try and pick one. I think you’d struggle to look past Dupont at 9, and although he didn’t play much, Jalibert at 10 was the pick of the bunch. Capuzzo at 15, although LRZ was also really impressive with a bit more room. Penaud of course on one wing. There’s a lot of lot of argument in the other positions, but I think Savea really stood out, as always, and Papali’i had two games where he was so imposing it’s hard not to mention him. Etzebeth is always impressive, and that continues, but he’s got lots of competition for a partner. In the other positions it’s not a case of that there weren’t people who put their hands up, but for hooker, I started considering names and I ended up with five, all of whom I would be happy to see there. I’m sure with more thought I could narrow that down to a starter and a replacement, but it feels like that for a lot of the other positions.