The Rugby Championship 2025, Week 2 and Women's Rugby World Cup, Round 1

Rather than splitting these up into separate reviews, I’m just going to review all the games in one huge list.

One thing that is going to crop up in my reviews of the WRWC is talking about different groups of teams. Right at the top we have England, who are red hot favourites to win it all, being undefeated since the last final. Then there’s a second group, consisting of Canada, France and New Zealand who are the likely semi finalists. They may not all make it, but they’re the most likely contenders. They could beat England in the final, but it relies on quite a bit of luck. Then there’s a third tier that is too large to all fit into the quarterfinals but who are competing for that, and for some a chance at a semifinal. This group includes Australia, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, USA and Wales. With the exception of Canada, all of these nations have some sort of professional national team and may have a professional league as well. Under this there is a group of also rans, minnows if you like. Teams like South Africa, powerhouses of the men’s game, are currently in this group - although in four years time they may have moved up a group. These teams may have some professionals but are usually mostly amateurs. Unlike in the men's game where teams like Portugal would fit this profile, in the women’s game the players are largely or uniformly recent converts from other sports. There has been women’s rugby at school or in communities, but not much, and that’s changing, thankfully. In Portugal, the male amateurs usually played as boys at school, albeit abroad, and continued as adults in the small number of clubs at home. Some of the women at the World Cup only started playing rugby in the last year or two as their countries establish the infrastructure.

(WRWC) England v USA

USA, with the possible exception of scrums, played well. They made a lot of their tackles (81% to the English 86%) and turnovers were pretty even (5-6). Their attack was varied and pretty regularly made good metres - there’s about 150m difference in metres carried between the two teams, but a Killdunne length of the pitch try from a dropped ball basically accounts for all of that. But England were just better in every position and 11 tries to one was a pretty fair reflection of their dominance. They were faster, their rucks were much faster - particularly in the second half - and they were able to slow down the American ruck ball frequently enough to stop their attacks almost every time.

The frightening thing is that England have areas, particularly the restart, where they can improve.

This match had more people in attendance than the final of the last tournament or the total of all the matches in the previous one. Now that first figure needs a bit of context; there was still quite a lot covid affecting travel so numbers were affected by that, but the growth is still impressive.

(WRWC) Australia v Samoa

Australia are, in all honesty, in that third band of teams with USA. Their match, next Saturday, will be the match that decides the runner up in Pool A, barring a crazy result. Samoa are in the next pool down, of teams who are still (largely) amateurs, and building a program. In the men's game they’re the Namibia, Portugal and the like in this pool.

Australia ran in their bonus point try at pretty much two points a minute. They slowed down over the rest of the first half, but they still managed to score seven tries to none.

We had our first HIA thanks to the new flashing mouth guards, which was not as spectacular or as visible as I expected.

Samoa were not toothless, they launched a few dangerous runs, and could punch holes in the Australian defence, sometimes for several phases in a row, but never for long enough to score. Their scrum and lineout were also very poor and they had no clear way to obtain possession or convert penalties into territory into pressure. Which was a shame, every neutral, and I think some of the Australian fans, supported the Samoans when they were in attack - there was definitely some love for the underdogs - but despite a few minutes of sustained pressure to open the second half, as soon as the Wallaroos got the ball, they advanced 70m like it was a step, and although their first attack was held up, from the dropout they scored.

This pretty much set the pattern for the second half. Australia absorbed Samoan pressure. They creaked and groaned at times, but never broke. Then they got the ball, went up the field and struck.

It’s hard to say exactly why there was such a change. It felt like Australia took their foot off the pedal a bit, let Samoa get a bit of hope and traction, although they didn’t score any points. Australia did slow down, they “only” scored four tries in the second half, but that’s still a decent performance really.

Samoa also got themselves the first red card of the tournament, a clear head-on-head shot with a high degree of danger and no mitigation. There were only six minutes left, so it didn’t make any difference, but it is a badge they’d like to have escaped.

(WRWC) Scotland v Wales

This is both a grudge match, Scotland stole victory by two points in the W6N, and, realistically, the knockout match for second/third. There could be a shock and someone could beat Canada, currently World number 2, but it seems unlikely.

This game started quite nervously, the opening game and probably the most important of them for all involved. As it settled down it became clear there were two distinct play styles: Wales were looking to dominate set pieces and breakdown, plus bits of magic out wide; Scotland were looking to play a wider game and both create and exploit spaces.

In the first half, Scotland were able to apply their plan better and were comfortably ahead at halftime, but unlike the previous matches we’ve seen, Wales were very much in the game.

In the second half play continued really with all three facets of the first half: nerves, the Welsh trying to play tight, the Scots more expansively and more successfully. Both sides dropped the ball, kicked it out on the full and the like, far too often for anyone to be happy. A few errors, sure, they always happen, but felt like everyone, all the time (it wasn’t, but it felt that way) and made it really scrappy.

Through all that, Scotland scored a nice try, Wales weathered a yellow card, but both sides were pretty poor. Scotland won comfortably enough but unless they improve markedly they’re not going to challenge Canada to win the group nor England who they will probably play in the quarterfinal. Wales were not good enough and will be going home early.

(TRC) South Africa v Australia

This was a match of making, and taking, opportunities. The Bokke were more ruthless in converting their chances into points; three on offer, Pollard kicks them. The Wallabies turned down one sitter, one harder chance to go for 5m line outs, but failed to convert either of them. At the end of the half, JOC took the points on offer.

The SA defensive pressure was back, throughout the half, and although I’m not as convinced their kick chase was as good as their commentators were, it was there and competitive and the kicks were mostly well placed.

Both sides will look at their set pieces and be less than happy. Both scrums and lineouts were creaky for both teams. They’d win some, then lose others rather than asserting dominance. The Wallabies' try came from a free kick at a scrum, a quick tap and a kick through that Toole finished off. It’s not true to say that never threatened apart from this time, but they struggled to make any progress against a set Bokke defensive line.

Australia scored first in the second half, good pressure on a defensive error at the back. They scored another try through good, extended pressure, something that will please their coaches more than any of the other tries I expect.

The second half was odd. We didn’t see a bomb squad, I think two subs at once was the most from either team, and they kept trickling along, Nche played 70 minutes, Marx 77, and that kept disrupting the organisation from both sides. Etzebeth rounded off the scoring and the win in between those changes.

I think Rassie will be publicly happy, and the public in RSA will be genuinely happy. From where I’m sitting, this was not convincing. A couple of different decisions or luckier moments from the Wallabies and they could have won. We don’t know that this year’s AB are better than this year’s Wallabies but we’re going to assume they are, especially when the draw for SA is two matches in New Zealand. They’d win Bokke need to improve a lot to win either of them.

(WRWC) France v Italy

This is the first match so far where we’ve seen the top two teams in the pool play each other. All the others seem to be in the last week of pool games.

France are not completely changed from the team that beat Italy in the W6N, but there are quite a few fresh faces, and they’re all a bit shell shocked after being torn apart by England in their last warmup match. Italy are much more settled looking.

In the first half, both defences looked pretty solid, largely containing the opposition's efforts, but there were differences. The Italian attack looked fluent but contained - passes were to hand and so forth - whilst the French looked disjointed, as often the architects of their own undoing through dropped balls or clean breaks but no support and so easy turnovers as they were actually stopped by great defence. The match stats say it was 67% territory to France, and it honestly felt higher than that. Whenever France had the ball they were in Italy’s half, often in Italy’s 22, whenever Italy had it, they were running from deep or trying to work off a lineout after a penalty.

Speaking of lineouts, the official stats show France operated at 86%, Italy at 82%. Those both feel much too high. There were a lot of whistles for not straight, I’m sure more than the five shown in the stats. It certainly felt more like they both had five or more than five total!

The scrums were a different story. Apart from maybe two scrums after the French front row was replaced, and the odd other try where Italy kept their shape, it was a penalty generation machine for France, and a great source of solid possession and metres as well. We haven’t seen many top-tier teams against each other, England bullying USA and France bullying Italy, perhaps it’s recency bias but I thought the French were more impressive.

In the second half, I’m not quite sure what changed but suddenly the French passes started sticking and everything looked a lot rosier for Les Bleues. They comfortably stretched out from their 10-0 halftime lead to win 24-0 and it felt more comfortable than that.

France will be satisfied with a win, job done. They should top their group and have a clear route to the quarterfinals, probably against Ireland. There’s work to be done, but time to do it. Italy will be disappointed to have been held scoreless but never really threatened. They have work to do, but are almost certainly going to win their next two matches and then lose in the quarterfinals as predicted.

(TRC) Argentina v New Zealand

Despite the grumpy old Kiwis telling me that this is a terrible AB team with no plan, awful players and so on, this match was more about the Pumas than the All Blacks. The Pumas, especially at home, are not an easy beat team, even for the best in the world. They are not consistent enough to rise up into that top tier, probably not consistent enough to win TRC, but they’re definitely good enough to beat all the other sides on their day, and affect the outcome.

Today was their day. They were helped by the early injury to Ratima. Christie is, I think, the third best Kiwi scrum half available, but he’s definitely third best by some margin from those above him. The AB back row struggled - they’ve been rocked by injuries and although I thought he had a decent game personally, Carter was on debut and the balance wasn’t quite right - but I think it’s probably fairer to say Matera had a huge game and exploited the new partnership.

And despite that, the AB did not capitulate, as the doom sayers would have you believe. Yes they lost. But despite three (probably deserved, one may be harsh) yellow cards they kept fighting, they scored the final points to take a losing bonus point. They were outplayed, yes, but not destroyed in the way SA were last week. This was a narrow loss away to a team that, last year, beat all three of SA, NZ and Australia. Disappointing rather than a disaster.

Congratulations to Argentina on beating the AB in Argentina for the first time.

(WRWC) Ireland v Japan

Just under a year ago, Ireland were beating the AB and sending shock waves through the rugby world. They didn’t really follow that up in the W6N, coming third, yes, but only thanks to bonus points, all of Ireland, Italy and Scotland won 2 and lost 3. Japan have a bit more history than many teams of women’s rugby, but are still in that largely amateur pool.

Ireland started looking a bit like France yesterday, a promising looking start but not quite able to finish things off. However, they clicked into gear faster and scored two quick tries. A bit like France and Italy, whenever Japan created pressure, and they did, the Irish seemed to contain them easily. The Irish lineout was completely non-functional though, to the point Japan would kick for touch expecting to regain possession from Irish throws, and it seemed like a good tactic.

In the second half, Japan can feel unlucky not to have scored three or four times rather than the once they did. There was a pass that was brilliantly intercepted and run the length by Ireland, and some other unlucky moments. However, that marked the difference between the teams. Ireland weren’t completely ruthless, but scored over 4 points per visit to the 22. Japan were pretty toothless, scoring less than 2 points per visit.

Most of the Irish players were a bit better than the Japanese, but their back three, who are also stars of the 7’s circuit and have the speed and ability to exploit a gap that goes with that, were absolutely a cut above everyone else and tormented the Japanese defence whenever they got the ball.

42-14 does not feel like enough to worry New Zealand about what’s to come.

(WRWC) New Zealand v Spain

Like several sides, the Black Ferns started quite loose, with long passes going astray and the like, but unlike most of them, they tightened up within the first five minutes. It took them a bit longer to stop spilling the ball in some big tackles, but if you can give Jorja Miller - World Sevens Player of the Year - the ball in a bit of space, the result is inevitable, and with about 12 minutes on the clock she got, and took, her chance. Six minutes later, she was in again, this time after the long passes stuck and put her outside the Spanish defence. They were deliberately playing narrow to put in the big hits, but NZ were good enough to just get players outside the line, and run it in. Miller only played the first half and beat 11 defenders, the most so far in this World Cup, and more than many teams manage.

The Spanish scrum was always under pressure, going backwards at speed if it wasn’t penalised, their lineout was worse, by some distance the worse I’ve seen, although Brazil or Fiji could have been worse.

It would be fair to describe the Spanish defence as inspired and beyond aggressive into brutal. But watching it live there was always a question of how long they could keep it up.

The Black Ferns were somewhat unlucky, there were several cruel bounces that denied tries, but the Spanish got an opportunity from a knock on and were able to extort pressure for a sustained period, although never really threaten the try line, settling for a penalty.

The answer to the earlier question about how long the Spanish could keep it up seemed to be 40 minutes. They didn’t stop tackling, and forced some errors, but the Black Ferns ran through tackles almost at will, the maul suddenly became a weapon - it had made metres but been a platform in the first half - and just when you thought it couldn’t get worse Portia Woodman-Wickliffe comes on as a sub… and a few minutes later she scored a try.

After an hour, the Spanish were cramping up, all of them. The Black Ferns were also down to 14, not with a card, but they’d used all their subs and there was an injury.

Shortly after that, NZ took another player off - 13 against 15 for the last 15+ minutes - but they’d used were still all over the Spanish like a hot rash. They still punched holes through the line, pretty much at will, and scored a try. And with the very last play, Spain finally cracked the NZ defence with their two woman advantage to score a try.

Of the blowout results that I’ve seen, this was the most fun to watch. Spain turned up with a plan to contain NZ, which was partially successful for the first half, and while they weren’t able to cross the line, they had some periods of pressure and played good rugby.

(WRWC) Canada v Fiji and RSA v Brazil

I haven’t watched these yet. There’s a limit to how much rugby I can cope with in a weekend. I do intend to catch up during the week and will write more about the matches then. However, for completeness, Canada stuffed Fiji, to non one's surprise. A bit more of a surprise, RSA stuffed Brazil. Brazil are pretty new on both the sevens and fifteens scene, but so are SA, in the women’s game. It would appear that the SA women have built off the structure of their men and are improving rapidly.