July Internationals 2024, Week 1

Rather than writing a normal match by match review, I’m going to do something new.

Because this is the first set of internationals for the Southern Hemisphere sides after the World Cup, while the Northern Hemisphere sides have played the Six Nations, it’s possible to frame this as the new versus the old, or at least the less new.

Some of that framing doesn’t hold up to well: Wales are currently constantly new as the changes in the funding models work through and change the personnel, with four debutants in their lineup and a tight five that had fewer caps than just one Australian prop. France took a massively inexperienced side, with eight debutants starting. But the Irish and English had reasonably established sides and all the NH sides had established coaching teams at least. For the SH hemisphere sides there were changes in personnel, with retirements/players going overseas, changes in coaches, changes in tactics and the first time playing together in seven months.

Most clear with a new plan were South Africa. Gone was the three phases and a box kick, instead there’s expansive play, trying and often succeeding in passing the ball to the wingers, but having the midfield carrying hard and often too. That’s not to say the short, contested kicks have gone, but they’re probably option C or D in tactical plan and, in my opinion, even more effective for their scarcity. If everyone is expecting them all the time, you’re set for them. If there are maybe ten in the match, you have to suddenly get into position. One thing that remains is the length of the match - typically a match, whistle to whistle, is about two hours. This one was closer to 2h40. In fairness, there’s a 10-15 minute chunk with an injury stoppage, but that’s still 20+ minutes longer than any of the other matches. It’s not only the Bokke, Ireland were slowing the game down too, slow to form up for scrums, lineouts, slow to restart and more. But that part of the old South African game plan is still there.

For me, the Irish continue to look like a side that have peaked and are on their way down from that peak. They still have great players but it’s not quite there as a team. There was nothing new to see.

Next up were New Zealand. They had flashes where their new plan showed, and it looked pretty good. It also looked quite similar to the Bokke plan, although the Kiwis have been playing pretty, expansive rugby for a long time. They were also aiming to maintain their old, high tempo, plan. The Kiwi’s plan didn’t look as solidly in place as the South African's, and I think there are a mix of reasons for that. South Africa actually played a couple of weeks ago, and although it was a different team, they knocked some of the rust out of the plan then. The Bokke team are then 20 of the 23 that started the World Cup final, that’s a lot of cohesion, along with a chunk of the same coaching team. Finally, for SA, the Bokke have added something that’s loosely around in the lower tier rugby, and that’s in their test history, they’re just returning to doing it at the highest level now. For the AB this was their first match, the rust was evident in places, and they’ve had much bigger shakeups both on and off the pitch, that showed at times. I think there’s an argument to be made that the English defence shut down DMac too. English fans will say that’s good English play, Kiwi fans, many of them, will say this is why DMac is a better 15 than 10. Without wishing to dump on Perofeta, who I thought had a good game with no mistakes, the improvement in the ABs when Beaudy replaced him and DMac was not the only playmaker was marked. There is an argument that this was their kicking game suddenly coming to life, Perofeta seemed to enter the game well and act as a second play maker well, but neither of them kicked from hand all that convincingly, Barrett did. Comparing someone winning their fifth cap to someone winning their 120th and a former two-time world player of the year and saying the second played better is just not fair. I would like to see BB and Perofeta starting next week, although I’m not sure Razor will do that.

For Australia I don’t know that we really saw a plan. We saw parts, like play down their end. I’m not being overly critical at this point though. Very much a case of new coaching staff trying to get a new plan across. Although there were a mix of experienced and new players, this is a new team after what Eddie did. It was their first run out, and although their victory really came from a moment of individual brilliance rather than the team plan, they have that victory boost and things to build on. We need to see the plan start to come together over TRC but a good start.

Wales started a load of new caps and they had good games. The weaknesses that we know were still there, although they’re starting to get less weak as experience develops. The scrum is not good yet, but despite a terrible start it fought back to near parity. The lineout is still vulnerable but getting better slowly. These things take time. Props and locks with single digit caps need a couple of years to have 25+ caps. But they will get there. Wales need to develop ways to score, but at least they did score tries (even if one was pulled back for a dubious technical infraction) and their defence was generally solid.

France essentially had a new team, no less than eight players winning their first cap. However, they have a very settled head coach and defence coach, although there have been other changes in the coaching staff. But these players, although they’re largely new to actually delivering it on the field, largely know the plans, the tactics. It took them a little while to settle down, but once they did, they looked good. I think it helped them, probably more than it’s easy to assess from the outside, that they had Serin and Hastoy at 9 and 10. They’re not Dupont and Ntamack (who is), but they’ve both got a decent number of caps, plenty of experience in the Top 14 as well, and they were a steadying influence on all the youngsters around them.

Argentina looked disjointed. More than any of the tier one nations (and with Moana Pacifica and Fijian Drua perhaps more than any team) their players are scattered all over the globe. Although a chunk of this team was the same as those that ran out in the bronze medal match in the World Cup, most of them haven’t been playing in the same country since. It showed. They also have a new coach and, presumably, a new set of attacking and defending plans. Those didn’t show, unfortunately. They’ll be better for this game, but so will the French. Where I think Los Pumas will really benefit from this series is come The Rugby Championship. Two games, then a training period to build cohesion is much better than no games to knock the rust off. They have a rough start, two matches in New Zealand, but they’ll be targeting home and away against Australia.

Italy looked good for 60 minutes against Samoa, then the conditions got to them, and the Samoans came from behind. The benefits of playing in SRP showed - Samoa don’t directly have a team, but a fair number of these players play for MP and that cohesion let them come from behind. A few years ago, Samoa would have lost this - Italy would still have wilted, but Samoa would not have had the team spirit to fight back.

Scotland are doing a tour of North America. They’ve taken a young squad, not as young as the French, but still young. They were still far too good for Canada, to the point one wonders what the youngsters will have learnt. Team USA is promising to be a harder challenge but I have my doubts to be honest.

Overall, this weekend was a victory of the new over the old. New Zealand and South Africa are clearly working on their plans for the next four years, how to lift that little gold cup. Neither of them are perfect yet, but they’re both off to winning ways, and looking good. More widely, France have some serious depth, their youngsters look good.

I think both of the big matches will see the home side improve for their run out. Will the travelling sides be able to improve as much? They’ll have learnt something about their opposition, but that opposition will have learnt more about each other and how to execute their new plans as well as learning about their opponents. I was going to say the same about France, but it’s harder to judge after the disruptions to the camp with Jaminet being sent home for threatening violent racism, and two young players being arrested for sexual assault. Argentina ought to improve as well but I think they’re starting from a much lower base. It might be interesting. Wales and Australia it’s hard to say. I expect both sides to improve, I can’t really call which will be better for the run out and which will improve most.