July Internationals 2024, Week Two

I’m going to return to a more normal review format this week.

New Zealand v England

Although this game remained close, probably uncomfortably close if you’re a Kiwi, the step up in most areas from the All Blacks was noticeable and it felt as if England were never really at the races.

England scored two very nice tries, using the same shtick twice. Once the fullback and one wing were trapped in a ruck on one five metre line and there’s a dubious argument that DMac didn’t cover across for Perofeta fast enough, Telea was a bit narrow; whatever you think, England exploited that very quickly. (You can also argue Telea was properly staying connected to Ioane and DMac would have struggled to get across any faster.) Kudos to England for noticing and exploiting the situation but how often does it crop up? The second time, England kept the ball for enough phases that the defensive line contracted and again they exploited it. I don’t know whether the Kiwis just told their wingers to stay really wide, or the one time the English successfully started running the phase count up the forwards got white line fever, but they never tried it again.

In attack, the All Blacks had a lot more variety than last week and that variety was a virtuous circle. England tried to pressure DMac and close everything down, as they did for chunks of last week, but there were options other than DMac, the AB took them and the defence was less concentrated on DMac so they can run more (not everything but more) through him, and it all works nicely.

One thing that particularly impressed me was how the AB dealt with the lineout. At the start of the game they couldn’t buy a lineout. Gradually they started disrupting lineouts on England’s throw and then winning their own throws too. It was never as good as it will need to be against South Africa but it was good to see them work it out on the pitch.

It’s early days still, and it’s clear the AB have a lot of improvements to make. It’s equally clear that they’re making them both between games and during them. A big tick for The Darkness under Razor. Two from two and the insane record at Fortress Eden Park remains.

England remain a good side, lots of teams have gone to New Zealand and returned without a win. Lots of those haven’t remained close and England did that. The question is, can they become great, a threat for the 6N and the RWC in Australia? For me, the jury is still out. They’ll be a big beast in the pool games for sure, but top seed or second seed I’m not sure. There’s going to be an almighty scrap for positions 1-4 in the world, I’m not sure they make it and, likewise, not sure they make a semifinal.

Australia v Wales

Although Australia won this a little bit of me, and I think them if they’re honest, wonders how. I don’t want to sound as if I’m taking anything away from the players who bust a gut, chased kicks, made decisions deep in their 22 to play instead of kick and so on, but the Wallabies scored three tries you’d have to call unusual/lucky and won by eight points.

In the areas where the Wallabies were weak last week, most notably maul defence, there was no sign of improvement. In other areas there were definitely signs of going backwards. How many kicks were charged down for one?

It’s not all doom and gloom. Although it’s simple, there’s a plan emerging and they were able to impose it for chunks of the game. Schmidt's M.O. is to start with a simple plan, then add things on, the question is how long the expansion takes, how long the rebuild needs.

Oddly, and I don’t think this is my inner fan bias coming through, I’m more encouraged by the Welsh performance. Pretty much all the areas of weakness from last week showed improvement. We still scored two maul tries, but we scored a nice try from defensive pressure and constructed one from offensive pressure too. Ok, that’s against a still poor Australia, but it’s an improvement. The scrum was better, not good yet but better, and we imposed long periods of our game plan as well. Our defence remained pretty good, and stayed solid for more phases. There’s still more to do, but a lot of signs that there’s more to come.

I hope that Gatland more or less sticks with this squad and starts to build experience and combinations now. A bit of rotation for injuries, maybe a few tweaks sure, but basically this squad for a while. We need some stability for a while.

South Africa v Ireland

Another battle of the heavyweights. This really was a battle. The first half lasted an hour on the clock, by contrast the second half lasted 45 minutes. Usually, with stoppages for substitutions, the second half runs longer than the first. There were so many stoppages for blood, on both sides, the commentators started making jokes about it. Unfortunately they’re better commentators than comedians.

Normally I don’t point a finger at a player and say “it’s your fault.” So many players make a contribution in so many ways that it’s hard to do that. However, while lots of players made mistakes and then good plays, I can’t help feeling that both de Klerk and Pollard had rather substandard games, with the exception of Pollard’s goal kicking, and that harmed the South African game. Did it cost them the game? Hard to say. But given how close it was, probably.

Did the Irish improve? It’s hard to be sure. They went out and absolutely laid their bodies on the line. That showed in the blood everyone spilled. But South Africa came out in the second half, Ireland couldn’t raise their energy to just smash them, and whilst South Africa couldn’t raise their own energy to score tries they dominated a large chunk of the second half. The Irish bench brought enough to reverse the trend and Ireland snuck a victory.

While this will be hailed as heroic in Ireland, it looked to me more like an old heavyweight boxer, blood in his eyes, punching on instinct, beating another elderly boxer having an off day. I’m not sure what it was, it was deep and visceral but it wasn’t rugby.

Argentina v France

This match started with a roar from Los Pumas. They looked like a side with 6x more caps overall and where their most capped player had as many caps as the whole of the other team (this week a slight exaggeration, Matera won his 100th, France had 109 caps total. But last week it was true.)

Argentina played with cohesion and aggression. Not the aggression of the SA v Ireland match, no blood here, but they hit breakdowns and the like as if they meant it. France played too and scored one try, missed two more. How you feel about them will vary, you can say they blew them, or Argentina worked hard and made some brilliant defensive efforts. I think it’s about 50-50 for each.

The second half was much more even, France roared right back into it, then it was nip and tuck for the final 20 minutes.

Although Argentina won, France have taken more from this series. Serin has reminded everyone that he’s a good scrum half. Better than Dupont? Don’t be silly. But ahead of Lucu, yes, I think so. Le Garrec, maybe? All of the pack are young, but look good, as Baille keeps getting injured, Atonio has to retire sometime, and so on, there’s a little production line of players putting pressure on them all. Danty is past it, certainly at test level. Frisch looks like a real contender for his shirt. Although Penaud is only 27, Attisogbe looks impressive. If Ramos gets injured, with Jaminet out now, Barré looks assured at the back. I could keep going.

Argentina, like all the other SH nations, have four weeks to prepare for TRC. Given their improvement from last week, I’m sure they’ll be better again by then. The same is true for most of the other countries too though.

USA v Scotland

I watched the whole of this game but it never gripped me. The USA promised to be stiffer opposition than Canada last week and technically that’s true. Scotland last week had no less than 10 debutants and ran up an enormous score. This week we had basically the full strength Scottish side, not quite but pretty close, and the final score was closer, but it wasn’t really a contest. I’m pretty sure the Scottish coaches didn’t learn anything from this and I’m not really sure the Americans did either.

Overall Thoughts

Of the teams trying to bed in new things, the All Blacks were clearly the most successful. Two wins, clear progress from week to week. There’s still more to do, absolutely, but you couldn’t really ask for more from any side. Galthié and the young French were the side that actually impressed me most, bullying a much more experienced Argentina in the first test, coming back after the backlash in the first half of the second test and, although they fell short in the end, overcoming all the disruptions in camp and fighting back so it was a contest when you’re that young is impressive.

Of the rest, Australia showed some progress, but other areas got worse and some areas (maul defence I’m looking at you) that they must have worked on showed nothing. It’s a muddier picture there, but not a bad one. Likewise for Wales, the benefits of a largely unchanged 15 and more time together showed. South Africa had one good game then went backwards, how much of that was Ireland smashing them out of their ability to try new things? Ireland showed they can still lift their game for a big game, but how many more times? The limitations in England were there for all to see, but a limited England side can do more than what we had before, and perhaps the coaches around Borthwick, plus the two Smiths who have genuine X-factor, can expand that over time. The list goes on like that.

The Rugby Championship and Autumn Internationals await, and I for one am looking forward to the next round of test rugby and what we’ll see.