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Autumn Internationals 2025, Week 0

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These internationals were played before the official test window began, hence calling it week 0. It made for some odd matchups, with really only New Zealand, Ireland and England playing with their full squads available (barring injuries and so forth), because they have agreements with their domestic leagues about releasing players (or in the case of NZ their domestic season is over) but overseas players do not get released. So Scotland played without Russell, Kinghorne and others, Australia were missing several of their regular starters too, and so on around all the teams. This is going to affect how detailed I go with my comments. Barbarians v All Blacks XV I’m not sure where an AB XV ranks compared to a NZ Māori team, but this was a lot of young kiwis, mostly names I didn’t recognise from the admittedly poor NPC coverage here in the UK this year, against a fun Barbarians team. Normally this wouldn’t get in here, but the AB XV were well outplayed at first then fought their way back ...
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TRC Rounds 4 and 6, WRWC Final

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TRC New Zealand v Australia This was a game with a lot on the line. New Zealand have a crazy record of victories at Eden Park, and although it’s not quite as long, a formidable grasp on the Bledisloe Cup as well. However, both teams have been up and down this year and there’s little doubt that the Wallabies at their best are more than capable of beating this year’s AB at their worst. Will those records crumble? This was a game best described as swingy. For the first 20+ minutes the AB barely made a mistake, and the Wallabies hardly touched the ball. The next ten minutes were a bit more back and forth, and in the last ten minutes the Wallabies took the game to the Kiwis. The penalties flowed against the defending team, probably 5:1, maybe more. There was definitely stuff missed for both sides, but it was pretty even handed. That continued into the second half. At the break it was 20-17 to the men in black, and given that the Wallabies have had the best second half, by far, of any of t...
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WRWC 2025 Semifinals

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I’m going to do something a bit different with these. Because of circumstances I couldn’t watch the first semi live, and I ended up watching it in two parts, having slept in between. Then I watched the second semi more normally. But it felt very different. When Canada faced New Zealand it felt like a clash to decide who would get to face England. France had lost three important players to injury or suspension, England have not looked as imperious as perhaps they should, but have still looked good, and they’re welcoming back World Player of the Year from a concussion break. The two matches started, in some ways, quite similarly. The eventual winners scored early. However, for Canada that looked like something that came from work and building pressure, for England it was much more a case of a bit of luck then a magical bit of star play. No complaints about them taking their chances but they didn’t really work to create one. After that, well none of the sides were actually faultless of...
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TRC round four and WRWC quarterfinals

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As last week we had TRC matches on Saturday, 5am and 8am, so I watched in the wrong order. Then we were down to two matches a day in the WRWC. TRC New Zealand v South Africa Where last week’s game started with all the momentum on the All Blacks' side, this game started just as strongly with the Bokke camped deep in All Blacks' territory. However, where the Kiwis scored early, the same was not true for the South Africans, a brilliant tackle by Jordie dislodged the ball from Kolbe's hands over the line then a knock on by Reinarch and two chances went begging. A penalty from that scrum to the ABs, and suddenly there was a fluid attack, first on the right, then a cross-field kick, then a sweeping move back to the other side to be finished by Carter on debut. It’s possible that not every AB touched the ball in the move, but it was the epitome of a team try. Despite that early pressure, and improved defensive pressure from the men in green, their frailties from last week remai...
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The Rugby Championship and Women's Rugby World Cup, Week 3

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We’re back to the men and women playing, plus the Top 14 starting but I won’t be reviewing that. Argentina are in Australia, South Africa in New Zealand. At the WRWC we largely have the top two teams in the pools playing off for bragging rights, in Pool A, USA are still in contention. Because Argentina v Australia was an afternoon kickoff, their time, so still in the dark my time, I’m starting with second match. TRC New Zealand v New Zealand At half time it was 14-3 to the AB and that might suggest the game was dull. That’s not what happened. This was a game where the Kiwis have worked out how to disrupt the Bokke machine and applied themselves to doing that. They’ve made everything except the scrum look very ordinary and they’ve taken a scrum penalty too, although they conceded a couple, but it’s far from complete dominance there. As an example of how badly the AB are disrupting the Bokke, there was a penalty when, ok, Pollard was a certain three points, which he delivered, but th...
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Women's Rugby World Cup, Week 2, Supplement

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I decided not to watch England destroy Samoa, beyond the highlights. So, on with the suprise result of the weekend. South Africa v Italy I said last week that watching SA play reminded me of Bryan Habana era Springboks. this week has really reinforced that. Their dominance at set piece over Italy was brutal, the French will be analysing that and thinking about it, but not necessarily worrying about it too much. They seemed to have corrected most of their lineout woes from last week and their scrum was also incredibly dominant against the Italians; it also pretty much holds its own against the English scrum which I’m guessing is better than the South African scrum, so I don’t think it’s going to be such a big weapon for the SA side next week. The forwards are not their only weapon, their backs are quick and can exploit a space, they scored some nice tries. However, 29-24 feels like a fair reflection of the game. Italy were able to defend quite a lot of attacks, and although they coul...
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Women's Rugby World Cup 2025, Week 2

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It’s a rest week in the rugby championship this week, so just eight WRWC games to go. These are, again, all teams expected to reach the quarterfinals against others, but like last week, where Scotland v Wales had the potential to be an upset (even though Scotland cruised to an easy victory), this week Australia v USA is an eye-catching fixture. One of the things I didn’t notice last week at the time, but was more obvious in retrospect: all the on-field officials are women. The TMOs are mostly men but all the referees and ARs are women, which is nice to see. Continuing that theme, at least in Britain we’re largely having female presenters around the game (before, after, halftime), with a mix of male and female guests. most of the main match commentators are male, with female colour commentators. Brian Moore, who was a huge advocate for, and supporter of, women’s rugby in the early days tends to be a colour commentator for England games but given his history with the game I don’t mind t...
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