Nations Champions, Northern Leg, 2026, Week One

 The Nations Championship is kicking off it's northern leg this week. The teams that didn't play each other in the southern leg will play in three rounds, then there's a finals weekend to be played at Twickenham, where the team ranked 1 from the SH plays the team ranked 1 from the NH, 2 from the SH plays 2 from the NH and so on.

Ireland v Argentina

This was a tough match to watch. If you just look at the score, 42-12, you'd think it was a comfortable win for Ireland. And, in terms of the Championship table, 5 points wrapped up, job done.

But this match is, absolutely, part of the build up to the RWC next year. These two teams are likely to face each other in a quarter-final after all. And, in fact this weekend, next year, will be the semi-finals. Both these sides will want to be playing, and on this performance, neither will be there.

Of course, the situation will be different. 

Argentina, as they are at the start of every test window, looked like a team of individuals. Last weekend essentially all of their players were playing club rugby across Europe. They had three days together this week to train as a team. It is entirely reasonable to say we shouldn't judge them on this performance, rather their performance in the last week or two of this window. Come the RWC, they'll have had several months together and will be playing much more like a team. So we can't judge much about what they'll be like from this performance. It's worth noting that, when they clicked, they looked dangerous, and unlocked the Irish defence, blunted the Irish attack. What they couldn't do was keep doing it, phase after phase, and that will come as they play together.

Ireland, on the other hand, have been together for two weeks or more, depending on who you listen to, training and working things out. They scored six tries and definitely had moments when they looked good. However, 42 points from 18 entries into the 22 (that's 2.3 points per entry) against a team that is struggling to defend for extended periods is a poor return. You would have expected, against a normal defence, something more like 63 points, and against a defence that was clearly struggling 84 would not have been unreasonable with that number of entries into the 22. An Irish pundit said that Ireland deserved a B for their performance, I think that's probably a bit generous, something more like a C+ or C. It was a pass, but there is a lot to work on. 

The big difference between the sides here was the lineouts. Argentina won less than 60% of their lineouts, which is disaster-level. They just handed the ball to Ireland, all over the park, and it led directly to a couple of tries. It also cost them at least one opportunity, possibly more.

The antipodeans are easily impressed by lots of tries. But this was a grind of a team with no spark against a group of individuals who had had no time together.

Both sides move on to easier matches, and Argentina to a whole week of preparation. Los Pumas face Italy, Ireland face Fiji.

Italy v South Africa

I’m going to start this section with my definition of a world-class player. It’s a bit more generous than some. A player, for me, counts as world-class if you can suggest their name in a discussion for a World XV and have it seriously considered. They don’t have to make the team, but they have to be good enough that people seriously consider them. For example, if you are thinking about scrum-halves, Dupont, Lucu and Roigard are, in alphabetical order, going to be the first three names everyone mentions. Just about everyone can agree they all deserve to be considered, there may be people adding odd other names - a few years ago JGP would definitely have been there too for example, and whilst I wouldn’t include him personally, maybe he should still be on the list. But in a World XV, there’s only one spot, if you pick a 23, two. At least one of them misses out… The discussion is not about whether we should be discussing those names, it's about who doesn't make it, so they're all world class for me.

This is not absolutely the Bokke's strongest squad, they’ve got some injuries and are reaching down the depth charts in a few positions but, unlike the team that played against Australia in their last outing, this is essentially their best team with a few injury replacements. I think 12.5 of this team are world-class, 12 certainly are and whilst I think Hooker needs more caps to be sure, I wouldn’t laugh if someone suggested him, I would discard him first though from any World XV discussions. 

Up against that, Italy really have, at their best, three world-class players now: Brix, Capuozzo and Menoncello. Two of them are injured, and whilst it’s always fun to watch Capuozzo play, sadly for the Italian systems, it’s Brix and Menoncello. So, the backbone of their defence and the structure of their attack is gone.

Sadly Garbisi had a shocker as well, at least kicking from hand. We know he’s not that bad, normally, so I would guess it was the pressure playing with his head, but whilst he didn’t make every mistake we saw from Italy, he was responsible for just passively giving possession away, missing touch and the like and wasting a lot of attacking chances. On the other side of the ball, South Africa relaxed after half time, they were 45-0 up after all, and Rassie wasn’t happy, so after five minutes he basically emptied the bench and the replacements looked sharper and keen, hungry for starting spots against France next Friday. South Africa ran out 66-7 winners and although teams with such a big lead always take their foot off the pedal, you can’t help feeling Rassie won’t have been impressed with only three tries in the second half. 

Italy will face Argentina, which is a closer battle, but after this mauling, and without their centres, still a tough one. South Africa move on to face France. If they play like they did in the first half, Les Bleus are in trouble. 

Scotland v New Zealand

If you find the list of “Fortress” stadia in rugby, places with the longest winning records, Murrayfield is on the list with 33 consecutive wins, for the All Blacks. Nothing like their Eden Park record of course, but still crazy. 

Initially this game swung back and forth, with the All Blacks playing by far the more creative and attacking rugby but also attracting the referee's ire far more often. The official penalty count at half-time was 7 to Scotland, 5 to New Zealand, but also two yellow cards to the All Blacks. There were several times when the referee gave a string of penalty advantages, three, four or five against the Kiwis and then blew the whistle, that’s only counted as one penalty of course, but puts ill-discipline in the mind of the referee. This sort of thing happens to both teams in almost every match, it happened to Scotland in this one. It felt as if New Zealand were particularly guilty of it in this game though.

Although neither of these are teams I actively support, in the 6N there are more teams I’ll support before Scotland than there are teams I support before NZ in the SH. So I’m probably loosely behind the All Blacks in this game. And having watched them, except in that blow-out against SA in Baltimore, they tend to finish strongly. That's despite the players being on record saying that they’re struggling to get to the fitness levels Rennie is asking of them. After about 50 minutes the back and forth ended and the superior fitness started to tell. The AB ran the score out from 24-21 to 43-21, keeping Scotland scoreless in the second half. 

Both sides had about the same number of entries into the 22, 10 for Scotland and 12 for New Zealand, but the Scots only scored 2.8 points per entry, New Zealand a comfortable 3.6. 

So far this has been the best game of the weekend, tight for 50 minutes is better than anything we’ve had so far. 

Both teams have easier matches next week, New Zealand travel to Wales, Scotland face Australia. 

Wales v Japan

Really this is a must-win for both teams. They’re about equally placed, although it feels as if Wales are on the up, Japan not so much. But Wales will face New Zealand (lose) and Australia (a win would be a great result, but not impossible, especially after the crap they served up against England), Japan will face England and Scotland, winning against either of them would take a miracle. 

The first half was quite frustrating to watch. Wales dominated pretty much every stat, and that reflected what I watched, but they were scrappy and rushed, particularly at the breakdown but in lots of parts of the game, pushing the ball out of rucks to no one, loose passes and the like. Japan couldn’t always capitalise on this, but they could often enough to stop Welsh momentum on numerous occasions and stay in the game. The Japanese were starved for opportunities, which is a great testament to the Welsh defence, but when they got a chance they were ruthless - three entries into the Dragon's 22, two tries, 4.7 points per entry! Mind you, despite their sloppiness, Wales scored three tries from five entries, for 4.2 points per entry which is also a good return. 

Japan had what, in terms of statistics, looked like a good start to the second half, lots of possession, lots of phases, but actually only one threatening period in the whole 15 minutes or so when Wales couldn’t touch the ball. Wales just comfortably held them in the middle third until a silly penalty let the Brave Blossoms get into the 22, then close to the try line, but a turnover quickly put a stop to that. When Wales did start playing with the ball, it was rapidly obvious the coaches had shouted at them. Gone was the tendency to push the ball wildly out the back of the ruck, rather it was carefully placed back. 

It was a slow half, but Wales gradually stretched out to a two score lead, Japan closed up to within one try with a few minutes left and that was it. Final score 28-21. Wales improved, on both sides of the ball, which was good, but the second half was dull to watch. However, with my imaginary coaches hat on, although it was dull, Wales did play good defence and improved on many of the things that they had been sloppy on in the first half, which was good to see.

Next week Wales host New Zealand, Japan face England.

After the match Dewi Lake said that Wales didn't play well. Whilst I think that's a harsh summary, I think it's good that the captain can look back at a win and say "we weren't good enough." Much better than looking back at a loss and having to try and say "we did that bit well."

France v Fiji

France have a huge injury list. Despite watching some of the Top 14 matches most weeks, there are names in this team sheet that were a surprise to me. Not unknowns, but not who I’d have expected to see popping up in a Maillot Bleu (and a very chic new, darker blue jersey it is too), although one or two might be gaining some test experience against Fiji as well. 

As always, with Fiji, it’s a bit harder to track their players - they play all over the globe with a core in Super Rugby Pacifica now, but others everywhere. Those in other leagues were playing for their clubs last week, whilst the French players were all released by their teams. 

For the first ten minutes or so, this game was a mess. France played like a collection of strangers, even if the two players involved were actually from the same club, and Fiji were running around like terriers, admittedly very big, physical terriers, smashing into anyone wearing blue. One of those things continued, more or less - Fiji continued tackling ferociously. I’m not quite sure how often LBB touched the ball, but he got smashed by at least two Fijians almost as soon as his fingers made contact. He’s probably going to have the worst metres gained of any match in his career. The other did not. Les Bleus gradually remembered their basic skills, passes started going to hand, players lined up against spaces and suddenly the tries started coming. 

Four tries to a penalty goal in the first half, and the only blemish was a nasty-looking shoulder injury to Ntamack. I’m not sure who the next flyhalf standing is? I believe Hastoy, Jaminet and Ramos are all out injured too and that's pretty much all the capped specialist 10's in France. France played with Dupont at 9, Lucu at 10, they can both play well in either role, and they played comfortably together. Does that need a "but it was only against Fiji"? Possibly. But the actual mechanics of a French 9 and 10 working together, running the game, seemed natural between them. 

The second half carried on in much the same way, another four French tries. With the game dead and buried, and tired players everywhere, Fiji produced a couple of moments of magic, but at 54-17, they were consolation scores at best. Something for the new defence coach to look at, nothing more. 

France host South Africa in a heavyweight clash, Fiji face Ireland. 

England v Australia

This was shaping up to be a good game, England had been in disarray in the M6N, and whilst they'd mostly looked better in the Southern Leg, playing Fiji and Argentina without their French-based players was not really challenging. They looked bad against South Africa, and whilst that can be said of many teams, Scotland looked much better against the same 23. There have also been reports of huge rifts between the coach and players this week.

Meanwhile, Australia have had a good start to their time under Kiss, and whilst they have most recently been spanked by the AB, home and away, they've looked like a team with a plan and building towards a brighter future.

Then came this game. Despite the score, 45-22, which looks like a comfortable win and is being heralded as such, neither side played well. England were better than Australia, but not good. 

If we compare some stats to the Scotland v NZ match with a very similar final score (43-21), England carried 126 times, Australia 117, Scotland 146 and New Zealand 140. That's 243 in one game, 286 in the other but 40 total kicks in England v Australia and 45 in other game. Why the huge discrepancy in carries? Part of the answer is probably a load more scrums taking up playing time, but that only sucks up a few minutes out of the 80.

If you look at my favourite stats, the Kiwis and Scots are discussed above, but England entered the 22 a whopping 23 times and scored 2 points per entry, which is awful. Fiji, who were thumped, managed 2.8, which is much better than that. Australia managed 8 entries (better than Fiji) and 2.4 points per entry, still not good - but some of that is down to missing two conversions. However, both sides scored at around one try per three entries (England just under, Australia just over) and you expect a conversion rate more like a try every other entry. So, poor. If you convert that for England, you'd expect them to score more like 70 points with that many entries, not 45. And you can't really put it down to the awesomeabsent Australian defence.

England had flashes, even I can't deny that. But not enough of them. Australia had an attacking plan that looked like it came from League, not Union. Run into defenders five times, then kick. It only really changed when Daungunu came on and said "Eff that" and started running at space or at least weak shoulders. He raised the Wallabies game so they scored two tries on attack, not just the one from an interception.

It should be said that, in rugby, just about any statement you make comes with caveats. I am criticising Australia for aiming at the defenders all the time, because they got no penetration from it. In the Wales v Japan game, one of the Welsh tries, and one of the Japanese tries, both came from doing exactly that. Lake, one of the heaviest players on the Welsh side charged at full speed into Saito, the Japanese scrum half, definitely the smallest player on the pitch by some margin. That was always going to make metres, and when you’re 5m from the try line, you don’t need many. He didn't make all five, but on the next phase, Griffin crashed over the line. It was also smart because the Japanese forwards were swarming around to reform the defensive line and they’re not going to fill that spot. In a move that we see in many, many games Dearns piled into two Welsh defenders, right on the try line, and barely shifted them, but got just enough to put the ball on the line. There are times and places for just about any tactic, the point about rugby is picking and choosing. Australia didn’t do that, they basically had one plan, and when England just chewed it up, they kept doing it. 

England were mediocre, with moments. Australia were just poor, and clueless.

Looking Ahead

Next week we have the following matches:

• France v South Africa. Rassie has gone early and basically announced the same SA side, France have too many injuries to be really competitive. 
• Italy v Argentina. With a full week together I expect Los Pumas to be much better. Argentina missing their centres can't improve enough to win.
• Wales v New Zealand. Wales can't win this unless NZ implode and get shown a bunch of red cards. A performance from Wales, rather than rolling over, and no injuries, is what I'm looking for.
• England v Japan. Japan are not good enough to challenge England. England might not be good, but they will be too good for Japan.
• Ireland v Fiji. Fiji should be better than last week, after a full week together and at their best could beat Ireland, but I don't see it.
• Scotland v Australia. Unless Kiss has a magic wand, Scotland will win this at a canter.