Sic Transit MMVIII

What an odd year it's been.

New Zealand reappointed Graeme Henry, and let Robbie Deans escape to coach "West Island" (or Australia as it's more commonly known). In the short term that has proven to be a good choice, in the longer term, who knows? Robbie Deans record in Super-14 suggests he's a brilliant coach, and 4 years to work with the Wallabies should let him weave his magic somewhat. However, the All Blacks bounced back from the disappointment and, with the odd hiccough, smashed through the Tri-Nations in convincing style, won a Grand Slam on their November tour - and for the first time in their history played test matches on 5 consecutive weekends, winning all 5 (they beat Australia in Hong Kong as a Bledisloe extra before their grand slam started).

Wales went from ignominy and exciting the RWC before the quarter finals to winning a 6N grand slam too. It wasn't just a flash in the pan either - come the November tests they were the only team that lived with New Zealand (albeit for only the first half), South Africa (which could and probably should have been a win for Wales), and were the only NH side to win, beating Australia (although France pushed them damn close too).

England, happily for me, went the other way. From a surprise appearance and a close-run thing in the RWC final, they slumped, spectacularly - mid-table in the 6N, thumped in all three November internationals against recognised sides, and to be honest struggling against a scratch team from the Pacific Islands. It would be interesting to see the Pacific Islanders and maybe Argentina incorporated into a SH five nations (maybe the penta-nations to keep the naming convention) because the Pacific Islanders have the talent, but not the chances to play together to make a solid international team.

The build-up to the 2011 RWC has started too, with preliminary rounds being played already, and the draw for the pools having being made.

Then there's the ELVs. The SH sides have played under 3 different sets of laws this year - their early version of the ELVs, the old laws for the June/July tours, and the IRB's global ELVs for the November tours. Oh, and in the case of NZ and Australia, courtesy of that Hong Kong test, the current SH ELVs which are the IRB ones with offsides at tackles, free kicks rather than penalties and another tweak.

My take? I think the IRB and NH old fogeys need to be shot. Their version of the laws, combined with the new interpretation that the English referees in particular have fallen in love with to the point of insanity, has stifled the game in the NH, particularly England, into a largely sterile contest. The SH by contrast seems to be producing even fitter, more aware players, widening the gulf between the two hemispheres (with the exception of Wales where the players play the game with verve and passion even as the WRU officials try desperately to stifle it, but nothing new there!). The SH contests are also producing rugby that's more fun to watch - that isn't supposed to be the aim of it, but if you lose your audiences, you lose your game very quickly, certainly as the big money spectacle it's become.

And finally, a rant that isn't new - big money in the English and French game.

If you look away from England, France and to a lesser extent Italy, there are small numbers of foreign players (as low as 0 in Australia, maybe a dozen in all of NZ and SA). The Magners League has more foreign players, but there are still strong cores of each of the teams from Ireland/Wales/Scotland although most teams have a few overseas international players. But if you come to France and England, the situation changes - just about every team has a truck load of internationals. In an earlier post I wondered how many of the England-qualified players would make a premiership top-XV. I *still* think the number approximates to 0. In fact, I think they'd struggle to get many players in a second-XV.

There was a comment in an analysis program I watched, which said that world-class players are those in the top three players in their position in the world. I think top three is probably harsh, so let's say top 5.

If you restrict yourself to players still eligible for international selection (so no Kiwis playing abroad except Carter who is on sabbatical), who would come from England in your top 5? There are NH players that make my top 5 - Martyn Williams, Andy Powell, Lee Byrne, Dwayne Peel (if he gets back to top form based on his end of year performance), Hook, Henson, Mike Blair, Shane Williams, O'Connel, Jenkins, and normally I'd list some French players here, and I think I should, but I'm lacking names and inspiration. But England players? Forget it, at least this year. Next year... with more experience Delon Armitage could make it, Flood or Cipriani might, but not this year.

But, looking at that list, perhaps it's no surprise that Wales are the best NH side we've got - there's 8 top-5 in the world players in that list. There are others lurking around too - Halfpenny might make it in next year. The other Welsh props aren't bad, just not top five and so on.

Predictions for next year? You'll have to wait a day or two for them I'm afraid.

Blog changes, 6N predictions and more

First, if you actually visit the blog (you do actually look at it don't you?) you will see some new gadgets on the side from LocateTV.com. They should update automatically to show you the next live rugby on TV, the next Rugby Club and the next French Rugby on Eurosport.

Six Nations: Assuming they play like they did in November:

Wales

France

Ireland

Scotland

England

Italy

Of course these things are not set in stone - injuries and the like might change the teams, England might suddenly wake up and start playing, who knows what Lievremont will do with the French... but that's my guess.

Over on Planet Rugby they ran a team of November. I don't propose to do that, but it was interesting to note that Lee Byrne and Shane Williams forced their way in to the top 15. I'm not 100% sure of this... but I certainly agree they should have been in the mix. Andy Powell just missed out, but was in the mix too - bright times for Wales!

Finally, we all know rugby is a team sport. However, the Baa-baas v Australia really highlighted that. On one side you have George Smith, one of the four greatest fetchers in rugby. On the other side you have Ritchie McCaw and Shalk Burger, both also in the top 4 (Martyn Williams being the other one). Who wins the battle of the breakdown? Well actually that varied, but who won the war? Smith outplayed the other two because he had a side that reacted well, they didn't and they didn't really work well with each other. I'm sure given time they could learn to, but they really didn't do that well together without the practise. Frightening thought really.

A weekend of glorious results

The All Blacks beat England. No surprises there, but the All Blacks were far from their best all round (if they'd played like this against Wales, they'd have lost) and England still got thumped 32-6. They still didn't concede a try against the home nations, and England gained the dubious honour of being the only side to score in the second half against them.

Bad as the ABs were, England were worse. The margin of defeat, on another day, would have been worse too - the ABs butchered a couple of tries, and Dan Carter left his kicking boots behind and missed about 4 penalties and 2 conversions. If he'd been on song, and if the squad as a whole had been, there could easily have been an extra 20+ points on the score line. The tried to play a disruptive, aggressive game. There's nothing wrong with that, and it did seem to disrupt the All Blacks' rhythm too, but it led to them giving up a horrible number of penalties, and to having no less than 4 players sin-binned (one possibly harshly, but 3 dead cert sin bins). The AB line out wobbled but held, the AB scrum, particularly in the last 20 minutes, was a thing of power, technique and beauty. My comments last week about the SH ELVs making players fitter seems to have been born out in this match too - in the last 20 the ABs just ran rings around England.

Is there anything positive to take from this performance? No, not really. Even when presented with the chance of points from a restart on a platter, they didn't manage it. They had a couple of other moves that looked OK but then fizzled to nothing as players went off their feet and the like, or just delivered slow ball. You would have to say that a decent side would have beaten the ABs on today's performance. South Africa or Australia would have stuffed them, Wales would have won. England whimpered.

Wales, on the other hand, were glorious. They too missed 3 penalties and butchered a couple of chances at tries, but they were still good enough to hold on, and to deserve the win. With about 3 minutes to go, I was wondering if they were good enough to run in another try and get the 15+ point margin of victory to raise them to world #4. It was the Aussies that scored that last minute try, but Wales were still sufficiently fit and sufficiently confident to defend for the next phase of play, and come away with the victory.

That's not to say Wales don't have room to improve. Their line out was poor (not quite shocking, but definitely poor) and actually gave away 7 points. Some of the individual players have areas of improvement... Andy Powell had a good game, but there is definitely room for improvement. Ryan Jones had a good game too it's worth saying. There was a lot of OMG he's lost it after the first match. But he played well last week and a blinder this week.

It would have been nice for Wales to win big and get into the top 4, but you would have to say that the ABs, SA, Australia and Wales are the 4 form sides of world rugby. What do they all have in common? They are creative. They go out to play and win, rather than grinding out a  "not losing." They are fluid and (mostly) smart in attack - making good decisions about when to pass, when to offload and when to go to ground. They are, by and large, ALL capable of all three skills too. In defence they are all skilled and smart too. All of their players know how to hit a ruck, defend the ball, steal the ball, and at least as importantly know when to do these things. Generally speaking they make their tackles, and when the don't complete the tackle, they slow the player down and a team mate adjusts to finish the job off. Their defences can be breached - they're human and make mistakes, and they can run out of numbers eventually as well, but their defences are fundamentally clean (unlike England's), fast and efficient.

I've mentioned this before, but I think the Guinness Premiership is to blame for England's woes, whilst the Magner's League and Super-14's are also to be credited with Wales' resurgence and the might of the Tri-Nations. The Magner's League should also help Ireland and Scotland - but Ireland is getting old and needs to rebuild, Scotland is coming out of a rebuilding phase and looked good against SA for example... so it might be helping them at last.

What's the difference? Relegation. Sure, relegation can manufacture excitement in a huge range of matches in the last week of the season (at least sometimes). But it encourages teams to make sure they don't lose rather than making sure they attack and try to win. Losing bears with it the spectre of relegation after all. Wasps may be the exception to this rule - they start badly, get to a position of having to win everything, and so when they get the last 4 and the other sides have to change mind-sets to winning, they're already there, used to playing that way, and so doing a great job of it. This year, it might not take, but it still might. In the Super-14s and the Magner's League there's no risk of relegation, so the players go out and attack. There are definitely matches that are rendered more or less meaningless thanks to this, but as a grounding for test matches, it's great. Test matches don't have relegation after all, they're one-off (even if they're part of a bigger tournament they're still really one-off matches for long term impact) and they're winner takes all.

There is another issue, I believe. If you were to look at the GP sides (and the Top-14 sides in France to a lesser extent) and write up a team sheet of the best players on current form - forget injury and nationality here - how far do you think you'd have to go to find a home player? I don't know the Top-14 well enough to be sure, but I think they'd have quite a few in the first team. In the GP? There are places (inside centre for example) where I'm not sure they'd make the THIRD choice team. I wonder how it feels taking the park for your country knowing, however deeply you bury it, you're not the best in your position in your domestic competition? There are players, for sure, that could go back home and compete for their national side (Jack, McAllister, James, Peel etc.) but there are enough players that are past it really (McDonnell, Hayman etc.) or never really challenged at the highest level (Braid, Hamilton) who are here now and would make either the first or second team in most people's eyes.

Should Jonno go?

The English press are starting to sniff blood in the water around the England Team manager and, unusually cautiously, starting to bite and snap at him.

Let's be honest - being hammered this weekend is well on the cards. New Zealand have a tighter defence and a better attack than South Africa, and England don't have obvious alternatives in most of the positions where they most need them (12 and 13 being a possible exceptions in the short term, and maybe the injury to Flutey will help make that decision).

If New Zealand do the business and win their grand slam (it is possible England will win, but I'd put my money on a hammering thanks, the bookies are giving unattractive odds (6/4 on England not scoring a try, and 10/1 on them not scoring a single point!) then that's too early, really, for the sharks to go into a feeding frenzy.

However, how about come March? Where do England have to finish to assuage the sharks? On this month's performances England will lose to Wales, France and probably Ireland. They stand a decent chance of losing to Scotland too. Could they lose to Italy? Yes, actually. I don't think they will, but they really could. Is 4th in the 6N enough to save Jonno? Is 5th enough to see him pushed? Last would almost certainly be enough to see him pushed or jump.

One thing that those who start this frenzy will have to consider is who will replace him? Jake White is a possible candidate, but there aren't many others out there. Then you have to wonder who would do better with the available tools. England were playing with inexperienced (at test level) players from 6-15. One of South Africa's not particular senior players came on as a replacement and had more caps on his own than ALL of England's back line. That makes it hard to judge what's going on and who is to blame. Yes, it's easy to say that Cipriani is as fault for the charge-downs, but he's getting service from a scrum-half that isn't used to the pace, and his outlet, whilst a club colleague and so there's some understanding there, is also new to the international stage. That puts extra pressure on the player.

The back-line has talent, but little or no chance of firing against the experienced, powerful, and well organised defences they've faced recently, nor against the better ones they'll face in the spring.

The tight-five should work better, they've got more experience, but they seem to have a model to play to - pods and standing shallow. A few of them have good running skills and good passing skills, but mostly they trundle and slow things down. Australia was defending rucks they couldn't win with one player to England's four (thanks to the pods) giving them three extra defenders, and they were STILL slowing the ball down. When you're playing sides that can think on their feet, where the forwards run good lines, can offload and pass (and that's all of them, or almost all of them) you're going to struggle.

English rugby might think they deserve to be the best in the world - but in the grand scheme of things English rugby just isn't good enough. It plays to a model that was tired in 2003 and has been swept aside in 2008. The defences and the attacks cope with England's style of play and chew it up and spit it out. Until England change and learn rather than look back at past glories, they're stuffed. If Jonno can't deliver that, and perhaps here his icon and RWC winner image is a hinderance, England either need someone that can, or to fall into mediocrity as, as a proud Welsh person, I think they should.

They're just better than us

The big three Southern Hemisphere sides that is.

Wales for 40 minutes of almost flawless rugby on their part, stayed even with an All Blacks side that didn't look quite settled - as many All Blacks sides haven't in first halves this year. But when the All Blacks stepped up from a rusty first gear to a comfortable second gear, and Wales fell back a little from their flawless best, the difference in class was obvious. The All Blacks said before hand that this would be their sternest test, and I think they were right - Wales looked like they were pushing them close for half the match and didn't really look out of sorts, just a poorer side, in the second.

England, on the other hand, were roundly, soundly and thoroughly beaten. They looked poor against a South African side that had stuttered against Wales and Scotland, and fell to their heaviest ever defeat at home. Oh dear. Perhaps they will end rather lower in the 6N than I expected if they don't turn it around soon.

But why? I think the ELVs, in particular the SH set of them, is making the difference more obvious. The SH-ELVs have lead to faster games, more running, fast taps instead of kicks at goal and the like. This is leading to fitter players, and so when you give the McCaws, Burgers and Smiths of the rugby world the time to catch their breath with the kicks they're even more dominant. It has led, too, to better defending. Because you might be out of place and alignment with a free kick, everyone has to play a stronger role in defence wherever they are. Sure, a winger will usually skin a prop for pace still, and you have you better and worse tacklers on the side, but all of the players on the SH sides understand the defensive patterns of the whole team and can adapt to it and they will attempt to defend, whether successful or not, and against the NH sides they usually manage it. On the back of this better defensive understanding comes two things - better ball retention and better understanding as well in attack. Now, in fairness, both of these elements have more or less been there for all of the time I've watched rugby, but when you watch the internationals it is basically only Wales that look inventive enough from the NH to trouble the SH sides (I think they might beat Australia on the basis of their first half), and that is due to their speed and running lines being better.

The SH sides are beatable of course - but it requires a speed of thought and action on both attack and defence that the SH-ELVs enhance and the NH-ELVs don't. They're making the gulf bigger, and unless someone realises it and changes the ELVs they won't get closer I suspect.

Worst test match ever?

It's hard to know what to say about the Ireland v New Zealand match. For most of the match it was error-strewn. There were times that the referee made some odd decisions - in particularly to deny Sivivatu a try - but mostly it was the players conspiring to not play well, the players on both sides.

In fairness most of the All Blacks only made one or two mistakes, but, most unusually, they all did, or almost all of them. The Irish were more error-prone, and largely because of that couldn't really mount serious pressure on the All Black try line - even when they got down there they didn't really threaten because they knocked-on, gave up penalties or gave up the ball.

The All Blacks only played well for about 15 minutes, but it was 15 minutes that gave them a penalty try and two more conventional tries. It also gave them a stupid piece of commentary about the penalty try. Would a try probably have been scored? Yes. Not certainly, but probably. Did a penalty offence prevent this? Yes. Is a penalty try therefore the right result? Yes, absolutely. The yellow card to go with it seemed harsh, but then for something between a punch and shove Lawrence was interested in whether a yellow card was harsh enough, so the yellow card wasn't that bad in that context.

The All Blacks deserved to win. They made fewer mistakes, they dominated the set piece, they kicked better, they received the kicks more accurately and with more intent. But OMG this was a bad, bad game.

If the All Blacks play this badly they're in risk of losing to Wales to next week. It sounds unlikely but good to say that.

England exposed

Australia beat England 28-14 a few minutes ago. Being Welsh, I'm happy, loving New Zealand as much as I do, I'm not delighted - the two teams I love to hate clashing is always hard to know what is going on emotionally.

But, England were really woeful. Allegedly England have an advantage at the break-down because of "lax" SH refereeing. Australia won the penalty count... England have an alleged advantage at the scrum. The scrums creaked and groaned and went a bit this way, a bit that, but in the 63rd minute Australia shoved England off their own put in in dramatic style and won a penalty that stretched it out to 21-14.

Australia always had the edge in experience, and it showed. They had a clear edge in class too - England did have highlights: Armitage had a good to excellent game at full back, Croft looked good at blind-side. But, that was about it. Cipriani and Flutey had moments of brilliance, but mostly looked average and in Cipriani's case moderately often looked poor, particularly when kicking at the posts. I wouldn't be surprised to see him dropped for next week, and that might just have Flutey dropped with him if the thinking is about combinations.

Australia dominated the lineout, their defence looked strong and organised most of the time, and they won the battle of the breakdown too.

Comparing this match to yesterday's is always hard. Australia are a much better team than Canada. But Wales looked disjointed with what was largely their second choice team, England looked only marginally better with their first choice team.

The final point: England only conceded 10 penalties. Australia conceded a similar number. However, England conceded 8 in kickable positions and all but 1 was kicked. Australia I think only conceded 5 in kickable positions, and only 2 were scored (one wasn't even kicked and trying to trick George Smith into giving them an extra 10 metres was always destined to fail).

Can England improve enough to challenge South Africa and New Zealand? No, to be brutally honest. Can they improve enough by February to challenge in the Six Nations? Unlikely. I can see them losing to Wales, France and Ireland on the basis of what we've seen so far.

Were Wales Wheelie Woeful? (With apologies for the terrible pun)

Wales beat Canada last night, but it was far from the polished, high-scoring, free-flowing match that many expected.

However, if you consider Wales had precisely 3 players from their first choice 15 last week starting (and James Hook who was probably unlucky not to have started last week) and had, I think, no less than 4 19-year old players in the 22 is it all bad?

Wales' second and third string players aren't as good as New Zealand's second and third string players. Well there's a shock. If you have a team that is completely disrupted, and formed of new players and players who have largely been out of international selection for a year or two (for various reasons) and you throw them all out together can you really expect them to gel and perform at their best? Maybe if they're All Blacks, but apparently not if they're Wales (or just about anyone else in the world). Did Wales see some positives? Yes. Halfpenny was good again. Daffydd James was good on the other wing - 3 good wingers is better than 2. Biggar stepped in far earlier than expected and played fairly well. Sometime Steve Jones is going to either step aside or be pushed - Biggar isn't quite the polished article yet, but he's getting there. Wales, with a rather baby-faced front row totally dominated at scrum time, and although there were hiccoughs in the line out, they overall won that battle too. OK, Canada aren't England, SA, NZ for that contest, but they're not a waste of space in those areas either. The key players for 5 years time have some experience now.

The breakdown started badly, but got better. There's clearly work to do there, but by the end of the game it was pretty one-sided.

One player, I'm afraid, picked out my particular opprobrium. That would be Stoddard, the full back. I never played at full back, but my understanding of the role is that, when they have the ball he hangs back as a last line of defence and to sweep up kicks through. Stoddard did that side OK. On attack the full back chooses times and lines to enter the back line to either create an overlap, exploit space, and usually create a different angle. On that he failed, dismally. I know he scored once, but he entered the line and promptly ran players out of space, then passed when they were already teetering on the side-line. Once or twice, of course, everyone will do that, but this was time after time after time. It was notable that Halfpenny's tries didn't include a touch from Stoddard for example... and the winger had the room to score.

Wales also have a play that needs to be written out of the play book - a big left-to-right move with a big gap between 10 and 12. South Africa poaching and intercepting is one thing. When Canada do it, to almost exactly the same play, you have to start thinking that it's rather too easy to read and disrupt don't you?

I'm not totally disheartened by this performance. I'd far rather Wales had won comfortably and looked good doing it of course. But they did win and there are positives in there as well as some experience for younger potential players of the next decade. Not really woeful then.

Wales disappointed, Scotland destroyed

After yesterday's matches Wales as a whole will be disappointed. South Africa, the world champions remember, were there for the taking. If Stephen Jones had kicked his goals, if James Hook hadn't thrown that pass, if any of the three/four chinks that Wales made in the South African defence had turned into tries (and at least two of them could have been on a different day) then Wales would have scored a historic second-ever win over South Africa, and you would have to say would have thoroughly deserved it - in most facets of the game (lineout being an obvious exception) Wales were better on the day. 20-15 the other way would have been a fairer score.

Whilst it is disappointing, it is also good news. Playing South Africa down there, albeit with a much weakened team, Wales were destroyed this summer. In a few months they turned that around and almost took the win. Being the number 6 team in the world and losing to the number 2 team is not a disgrace. Most of the new boys worked very well - in fact most commentators have Andy Powell winning his first cap as the man of the match: personally I would have put Lee Byrne there, but Andy Powell did play a blinder. Lee Halfpenny lined up against Habana and looked comfortable too.

Whilst Wales are disappointed, they have more than enough positives to move forwards. They have a reasonable chance to take Australia you'd have thought after this performance, particularly given how close Italy pushed the Australians.

Scotland on the other hand have no such positives to take out. They fielded probably their best team against what is probably the weakest All Black team (at least on paper) I've ever seen - including mid-week matches when they were played on tour. The back row had 5 caps or something stupid like that between them. One of the props was coming back off injury, the other was winning his first cap. Rockococo is hardly a bad player, but he was coming back off a long injury lay off. 13, 14, 15 were either debutantes or had a cap or two at most. Boric at 5 was winning his 5th (I think) cap, maybe fewer, but certainly less than 10. Even Stephen Donald at 10 is relatively new to the international stage.

Now, of course, being picked to play for New Zealand means they're pretty good. All Black teams might be, as this one was, weak on experience but they're not weak on talent. The players went out and looked like an All Black team. They hammered into the tackles, they hit the break-downs and stole ball when they could, disrupted the other side's ball most of the time when they couldn't steal. By and large they didn't really create that much direct scoring, but they were, in true New Zealand style, devastating off turn over ball, and they created the turn overs too. When running they ran in support and were there for the offloads, the pop-up passes and so on. Their new prop was really the only player that looked to struggle, and he didn't look bad really, just he was struggling against someone who is currently one of the better props in Europe on recent form.

What positives are there for Scotland? Well they scored first. They didn't concede 100 points which against the top-flight choices you would have to say they could have done.

There are times when you would have to say the best test rugby in the world is the NZ Probables v the NZ Possibles. Currently New Zealand aren't quite that dominant in depth - particularly at lock and prop. But that New Zealand B team looked good enough that I'd put a penny or two on them against any of the Northern Hemisphere sides.

I'd also like to comment, again, on Wayne Barnes. Is he the most unsympathetic referee in the world? He pinged people for not rolling away a lot. One of the more memorable occasions the tackler released the person he tackled and put his hands flat on the floor. It's true he didn't roll away. It's also the case that the tackled player was lying across his head and shoulders and he did as much as any reasonable person might expect to NOT interfere with the play of the ball - which is, explicitly, the reason they're expected to roll away. Stupid, stupid penalty to blow for. Apparently Mr. Barnes also interprets "must not go to ground" as "must not be driven to ground by the actions of another player" which seems really harsh. There are laws that say "if you're on the ground, you can't play the ball" and it says you must not fall on or dive over the ball or another player, but not that you can't be driven off your feet. Now, he penalised both sides for this, but for crying out loud, it's not in the rule book, it's a bizarre interpretation of the laws.

It would be fair, I think, to say, that despite the hand-rubbing glee of some commentators, New Zealand adjusted better than Scotland to the whistle-happy Mr. Barnes. South Africa actually adjusted badly to a much more reasonable referee and are likely to be in worse trouble when they have an English referee. But those same commentators saying "Oh, Northern Hemisphere referees are much tougher and will blow the SH teams off the park" need to remove their blinkers. English referees are being stupid about it. Referees from elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere are much closer to the Southern Hemisphere interpretation of the "off your feet" laws than the English referees are. The only difference is that what the NH still considers a penalty offence because of some bizarre belief they "earn" a kick at goal, the SH still gives as a free kick and encourages flowing play - and more tries as a consequence.

English referees killing the game

OK, over the weekend I watched most of the H-cup matches as well as the ANZ Cup semi-finals. One thing was noticeable - I wish I'd taken stats in fact - that the English referees seemed to blow far more often than any other nation's referees. This new, stricter interpretation of Law 15 it appears: there were certainly more penalties for going to ground in those matches as I saw it - although there were penalties for it in many of the others too.

So, to find out more about Law 15 I went and looked it up. To save you the effort, here's a link to law 15. Subsection 7: forbidden practices is what you're looking for. You can't fall over on the tackled player, or on other players lying on the ground after the tackle. Not "you can under no circumstances go to ground" which seems to be the current interpretation.

Law 16.2a is really clearer about the situation: All players forming, joining or taking part in a ruck must have their heads and shoulders higher than their feet. Failure to do so? That would be a free kick, not a penalty. Mind you, 16.2d says they must be all on their feet (but heads and shoulders could be lower) and that's a penalty.

But law 15 isn't the right place to blame unless they've renumbered with the ELVs, and you can argue that if they join the ruck on their feet and with their heads and shoulders up, and then go to ground and stop playing the ball, they haven't done anything wrong.

So on what grounds are the English referees blowing the crap out of the game? Why?

Why they're called All Blacks - in action

You, of course, already know that All Blacks is a typo don't you? The original quote, about the first New Zealand Rugby tour of England in 1906 contained the comment that with their level of skill they're All Backs. The fact they were already playing in black led to the extra L and the All Blacks were born.

But today, in the ANZ semi-final we had a lovely illustration of that original soubriquet in a match that was tense and frequently frustrating because of the tension causing odd silly mistakes although, in fairness, there was a really high level, committed defence which stifled a lot of the attacking moves, including Danny Lee knocking himself out whilst nudging Corey Flynn just enough that he dotted the ball on the touch-in-goal instead of down for a try (Lee tackled Flynn's shoulder with his head... scrum half's head v international hooker's shoulder... ouch) and in reply Colin Slade wrapping around the ball as Hawke's Bay tried to score, preventing a try being scored by lying underneath the rampaging lock with his head under the ball. Not quite as painful as Lee's effort, but still...

Anyway, the "All Backs" comment. Canterbury won the ball at turn over and passed the ball across the "back" line in normal red-and-black fashion. The person playing third receiver/centre ran flat-out on a line out towards touch, the person outside him (who I guess was really playing in the attacking full-back slot) ran across behind in a beautifully executed scissors move, burst through the hole that the scissors had created in the drift defence and ran over for a try. It really was a text book execution of the skill at top speed, and deserves to be in the coaching manual. What makes it really special though: the "centre" was wearing 3, the "full back" was wearing 4 - the tight-head prop and a lock were the players executing the perfect scissors at top speed and unlocking the defence with it.

One of the other things that contributed to the relatively poor game - and this is no reflection on the quality of the replacements who in most cases did a good job, and in at least one case did a better job - was the number of injuries. You really could call this attritional rugby. Canterbury lost a wing in the first few minutes, a scrum half in the first half and their centre in the second half to injury - in the first case at least a fairly severe looking one. Hawke's Bay lost their scrum half as described above, and a couple of other players too.

And sadly for Andy Ellis's international aspirations, he was the player who went off and his replacement did a lot better. Whilst Jimmy Cowan has gone from strength to strength this year, on the pitch at least, Andy Ellis has gone backwards - he tackled very poorly, his distribution was not the best, although his running game and support led to a try for him but that is an icing on the cake and his basic scrum half skills aren't solid and the All Blacks tend to go for that first.

I'm not sure who will get the places behind Cowan, particularly with Weepu playing at 10 for Wellington, but Ellis will be at home in November I'm pretty sure.

ELVs, relegation, mauls and Jimmy Cowan

It's a bit of a mixed bag this time I'm afraid.

Firstly the ELVs and relegation. I've already blogged about my dislike for some of the current rules interpretation in combination with the ELVs and I find myself continuing to feel that dislike. Last weekend I watched the BBC's coverage of the EDF cup and it was nice to see some rational comments about the interactions, and the fact that these interactions are what is crippling the attacking game.

But there was also a comment that relegation makes the game more meaningful - although it wasn't phrased that way. Our survey says "Uh-uh." The rugby held as the pinnacle of club competition, certainly in the Northern Hemisphere, is the Heineken Cup, which started this week end. What characterises the H-cup? Despite what the pundits will tell you it's not automatically the best teams in Europe - look at last season when Northampton were in the H-cup despite playing first division rugby at home. Look, with apologies, at the Italian sides, who are targeted as 10 points (2 bonus point victories) on legs by any serious team. What characterises it, (well did before the fucking English referees whistled it into a farce) was good, attacking rugby. Fluid, entertaining play. Why? One is incredibly tempted to point the finger at one thing: no relegation. You can only, really, get through to the later rounds of the H-cup if you win 5 out of 6 games. Occasionally teams with 4 bonus point wins get through as runners-up. The result? Teams take risks to win and rugby looks better.

Or consider Wasps last year in the Guinness Premiership. They had a terrible start, but then came back. They won the whole thing. But, for about 5 months of the competition if they lost any game there were out of contention, couldn't get through. I don't like Wasps in general, a certain Mr. Dalaglio always irritates me, but they had no choice but to play attacking rugby, to play to win. Come the end of the season, no change in their headset, they go out to win and stuff the opponents.

OK, relegation battles can make the last weekend's matches more meaningful with, potentially, all 6 matches on the final weekend of the GP having an impact on who goes into the final and/or who goes down. It doesn't always work out that way of course - twice in 11 years if memory serves. Can the English, should the English, look to the Magner's League, ANZ, Currie Cup etc. models? There isn't relegation (actually I think for the latter 2 there is, but not meaningful levels of it) and the teams play interesting rugby because they see benefits to winning and they're prepared to risk a loss here and there in order to get a bonus point win, or risk giving up a bonus point to get a losing bonus point instead. Rugby doesn't have to be made easier to watch - and the ELVs don't make it easier, they make it faster and more entertaining everywhere except in England - but rules that encourage entertaining play are a good thing if you're thinking that the game is meant to appeal to its fans and occasionally more fans.

You hear, as well, the commentators bemoaning the death of the maul. What utter CRAP. Granted mauls have more or less vanished in the GP, but then so has rational thought and the ability to counter-attack and more. Mauls weren't a regular part of the Super-14, but in both the ANZ Cup and the Currie Cup we're seeing rolling mauls. Why? Well someone realised that the new laws don't routinely stop the ball carrier, who is at the back. There's a different skill set than just "ugh, grunt, shove" which tends to lead to the whole maul collapsing if one player goes down, but teams have learnt how to do that. One of the great truisms of rugby is that you score points by making space on the field. That's why scrums to the attacking side on the 5m line are so potentially dangerous: you've got 18 players in about 3-4m width of the pitch, and so 6 v 6 in the remaining 40 m width or so. Rolling mauls, with their players taking out yours... ok, you lose an attacking player, but they lose a defending player into an offside position as your maul moves the ball forward and you make space for your attack... is this a bad thing? Surely not. It just takes some adjusting the skills to make use of it. Oh, and the willingness to try.

And before my final thought, I wonder how many times the English referees blew the whistle this weekend compared to everyone else? We hear these complaints that with the ELVs we're seeing the development of a North-South divide. However, it's worth noting that the difference in the interpretation of Law 15, which is insanely harsh in England compared to the rest of the world and NOT an ELV despite what the managers say is creating a divide between England and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere too.

And finally on to Jimmy Cowan. He played today for Southland against Bay of Plenty in the quarter finals of the ANZ Cup. He had a massive game, and whilst he might not have won man of the match, he was certainly a serious contender for it, and won it in my books. Returning All Blacks, into club rugby, are supposed to have a big influence. Jimmy Cowan did that today, in spades. It looks like this season, despite his off-pitch problems, has seen him really grow into an international quality scrum half. This is always a good thing to see: it's tempting to wonder how long before the people a bit further up North on the South Island try to tempt him away into the Red and Black machine - he's certainly doing a better job than their incumbent on the biggest stage. Good luck to the Cowan family though... it's nice to see the problems haven't messed with the rugby.

Boring, boring England

The managers of the Guinness Premiership are betraying how boring they are, and also to a large extent their underlying ignorance.

They are, almost to a man, complaining that the ELVs are penalising attacking play, but actually what is penalising attacking play is the IRB's ruling on interpreting the law about off the feet at the ruck. This is NOT part of the ELVs but presumably the coaches are too stupid to realise the difference, or think we are.

As for whether the referees are doing a good job or not - it strikes me that the players going forward are much more likely to go off their feet than those in defence, at least after the first one or two, because the others run back, balance and go forward into the ruck, arriving later than the attacking players who have probably charged to get there, not paused for balance and consequently do go over the top. I'm not saying the referees are perfect, but I rather suspect they're doing a reasonably fair job of what they see.

But the Northern Hemisphere ELVs are different too. In particular, they've kept penalties for everything. What does this mean? Well, they've kept the penalties, so there are still a lot of kicks at goal for points, and a lot of lineouts. Of course the change in numbers at the line out law (which is an ELV) is meaning that putting in, particularly to attacking lineouts is not working as well as it used to, but that's not stopping the old reflex of go for the corner and when it does, it just means they kick for points... and the game is not flowing and running and attractive, it's slow, and structured and then disrupted and everyone moans.

There seems to be this belief that "Oh, that's worth a penalty" makes the SH ELVs unfair. What bollocks. If the laws of the game are changed to the ELVs (and if they are I hope it's the SH version) say that this is worth a free kick, and persistent offences can upgrade that to a penalty, then that's what they're worth. It's still fair to both sides as long as the laws are applied consistently, it's just different to how it's been done for the last few years.

Despite what the wingeing conservatives would have you believe, rugby has changed - and it usually changes to empower tries. In my lifetime we've had a few changes for safety (like stopping collapsing rucks, and the changes to the scrum to make that hopefully safer), and we've changed the points for a try from 4 to 5 to try and encourage more tries. We've changed the typical league points system several times too... it used to be 2 for a win, 1 for a draw, 0 for a loss, like football. But we changed to bonus points for 4, 6, and I think it was 8 tries, and then down to only for 4 or more tries, and for a small loss...

If we go back to the 30's and through until after the war I think, rugby was decided on the number of goals, be that penalty goals, drop goals or what we'd now call a conversion. The reason they're called tries? Because it gave you the right to try for a goal.

Contrary to the gripes of the boring commentators and boring coaches, rugby can't exist in a vacuum. It does rely on the support of the fans. The SH rules are producing a far more entertaining game on average. I'm not saying the old rules couldn't, but they often didn't - the SH ELVs still produce dull games too, but typically they're more exciting. They're faster, but they still have all the old elements, just in different proportions. How does this reduce the skill level of the game? The fact that they're faster means the players have to make decisions faster and under more pressure. This is supposed to make them more stupid somehow?

Admit it: you're boring old farts that don't like change because you're grey conservatives. Not all change is good, but if you're going to criticise the changes try to have something sensible to say about them that stands up to even simple analysis.

Australia 24 - 28 New Zealand

So, New Zealand reinforce their world #1 status without being RWC winners again, keep the Beldisloe Cup and the Tri-Nations crown, and although I'm biased I think you'd have to say they deserved all three parts of that.

There are really two things to write about in this match. Sadly one of them is Jonathan Kaplan. With two of the best fetchers in the world on display, probably the two best in the world, he refereed the match in a way that basically prevented them both from doing their jobs. I'm sure there was a lot of lying on the ball and not rolling away - although some of the times he pinged people he quite clearly got it wrong, but there were a number of times where he just told the fetchers, both of them, to stop for no readily apparent reason: at least from the camera's eye. He also seemed to believe that any time a scrum wasn't going to be won by the attacking side it must be a penalisable event, at least for the first half. Having de-powered the scrum he seemed more content to let things go in the second half on that front.

The other thing that was noticeable here was the composure of the ABs. Australia played well at times, and at about 50 minutes were 17-7 up having scored a somewhat lucky try with the last touch of the first half and a well constructed try 6 minutes or so into the second half. Despite this, you would still have to say that the ABs were defending incredibly - stopping attacks running into 12, 15, 20 phases near the try line by being well disciplined and not making any mistakes before the Australians did. Then suddenly, with the advent of 3 substitutions the ABs went up two gears and the Australians slacked off on their 10 point lead. Suddenly the ABs scored 3 tries in about 15 minutes and the game looked pretty well wrapped up.

The Australians came back and scored an individual try and the last couple of minutes were interesting as Australia tried to attack and the ABs defended, but it was that old story of defending until a mistake came and they could clear the ball and move on.

There was another interesting thing. Maa Nonu went off injured at 50 minutes and Stephen Donald came in. It meant that the ABs were missing a mid-field banger, but they had three play-makers. This appeared to free Carter up more than a little, and if I were Henry I'd be wondering if I could use that as my 10, 12, 13 axis on a regular basis... I'm not sure, and I'm not an international coach, but they did look good for it. I know the traditional structure is a play-making centre and a banger (in Northern Hemisphere terms that is) but they looked really good with three playmakers out there.

On "The Rugby Club" someone identified Jimmy Cowan as the weak link in the ABs team because he's not a world class player. It's true he's not a world class player, but you would have to say that in his 50 minutes he only made one real mistake and a couple of sub-standard passes. All the rest of the time he looked happy and capable in his role. When he went off and Weepu came on Weepu looked great because the damage had been done by Cowan to the people trying to shut him down and Weepu, understandably, had more energy to exploit the gaps that were left because of that.

I'm sure Graham Henry would be happier with a RWC in the cabinet as well, but I'd have to say he will be fairly happy with where he is now. Robbie Deans won't be distraught - first season in charge and changing quite a lot of the systems and his side were in the hunt until the 60th minute of the last game. They've both got positives to take forward into next year. The other big positive for an international coach? You'd have to say it's another Kiwi, one working in Wales this time. There's a few in "wait and see" mode, and a few that are doing OK, but the top three coaches in the world at the moment all happen to be Kiwis IMO.

Samoa 14 - 101 New Zealand. Consistency...

Normally, I realise, I like close games. But blow-outs can be fun, as long as one of my teams isn't on the receiving end.

This was one that, probably even if I was from Samoa, I could have enjoyed. Why? Well it's good to see a team running through their paces and moves and working efficiently - which the ABs definitely did. But Samoa, despite the score line, showed up and played with pride and passion if not always a great deal of skill, the hits were real (occasionally massive) so it's better, you would have to think than a training run-out.

The other thing that was nice to see was the crowd, who towards the end rose en masse to applaud the Samoan's second try. It was, it has to be said, a really well worked try and deserving of applause, but if Australia had scored it, there would have been silence. To watch Samoa, they were there to applaud good rugby, and both sides produced it.

Watching the show also made me think a bit about what you look for in an international player. I mean, obviously, ideally, you want the best in the world at each position - McCaw, Carter, Hayman etc. have done that for the ABs over the last few years. But, although a team can be the best in the world, they probably don't have the best players in the world at each position. And, it has to be said, even the best sometimes have bad days. If I was grading players, from A+++ for the world beaters, you'd have to say that the bar for consideration for a test team (at least for a "big" nation (high on the IRB ladder rather than in population count) ought to be A as minimum (although you will take the best in the country of course, regardless of that if you don't have A-grade players).

But would you rather someone who is, on a typical day an A+ player, but on a bad day only a B player? Carter and McCaw on a bad day - probably still A+ players. But Sione Lauaki and Maa Nonu are today's targets - in part because they both had good and bad moments in the game. Obviously if they have too many B days they get dropped. But how many bad days or times do you give them to gain experience and see if they can improve? Some players just step in and look right at home of course but Nonu, for example isn't one of those. Even after an extended run at 12 for the ABs he still has shockers. He had moments of that today. Should he be dropped and a new number 12 tried in the slot? There probably are candidates - Toeava springs to mind although he's a different type of player than Nonu and perhaps the ABs need the banger that Nonu is in their midfield - Umaga used to be that player, although he did have the ball catching, retention and passing skills too, which is where Nonu struggles on his bad days. Of course I don't have to have an answer to the question, they don't pay me the big bucks, but there's just enough there I'm starting to wonder why they're sticking with him, and how close to being dropped he is (or, in Lauaki's case how many "just one more" chances he'll get to prove he can raise it).

SA 53 - 8 Australia

Another case of what a difference a week makes - and again at Australia's expense.

Australia did, I think, play a bit worse than last week. Not really badly, although there were poor patches, but never really well either. Quite a lot of that must go down the Boks who played their socks off. You could be critical and point out that there were several really good try scoring opportunities that Boks butchered at various points in the game - they could have been into the 70's if everything had gone to hand. That said, every player is entitled to the odd mistake and that was really what they were, rather than anyone having a bad game. Butch James might be the exception - he had a rather poor kicking game but played well in the other aspects of the game.

This game might paper over the cracks that PdV is causing in SARU, or rather between SARU, the players and the fans. A resounding victory tends to do that after all. It was, however worth noting that the PdV game plan went out the window. Whether that's what he decided, or what the players decided or what isn't clear, but this Bok side played like the sides of old. They kicked the ball in defence. They quite often (at times probably too often) kicked the ball in attack for territory. They hit the breakdown in numbers and cleared the Wallabies out. Bekker and the whole front row carried the ball close, hard and on a few occasions wider and faster, but never really wide: there was always someone (or several) with pace further out. The back row were all over the place doing all the things they're meant to do. (Matfield tackled well, but didn't appreciably carry the ball often, but with the rest of the forwards doing that he wasn't missed in that role.) Although the points were largely scored out wide, the gaps were made because of the tight, close play sucking in the defenders rather than any real attempt to play the ball wide at all costs.

This is setting up an interesting conflict in a fortnight. Australia have really only played well twice in this Tri-Nations, but both times it's been at home. The All Blacks have played well both at home and away, but can they play well in Australia in two weeks time, can Australia play well at home again? It's a winner-takes-all encounter in which, in the unlikely event of a draw, the ABs have the edge.

On a different note: I've seen a fair bit of the ANZ cup coverage. There have been a lot of commentators saying OMG NZ Rugby is in a terrible state with retirements and people moving away to play overseas. Whilst it is true that there are a lot of potential ABs elsewhere in the world (at one count there was a possible entire first choice team not available for selection recently, certainly an immensely strong AB Possibles to play against the incumbents) the ANZ Cup is, as usual, demonstrating that NZ Rugby has a really pretty healthy system underneath its top layers (that's the ABs and Super-14s I guess) to bring new players through. Whilst some of those may never make it all the way, there is some depth appearing again, even in "problem" positions like Lock.

Who will PdV blame this time?

Australia won 27-15. South Africa really only played for about 20 minutes, and that was actually only to an average standard, it's just they were so poor for the rest of the game that it looked good.

Australia didn't really play that well, but they didn't have to. I'm not sure how many times the Boks knocked on (it was quite a few), how many times their line out misfired (several) and how many turnovers Smith, Palu, Elsom and, for a few minutes, Waugh created (quite a lot) but they just dominated possession and territory because of that. In fact, I suspect when they look back on it, they will consider it a failure because they were dominant enough they should have scored at least four tries but they didn't manage to.

I suspect PdV will wield the selectorial axe and blame his players. Obviously a team that is largely comprised of players who won the RWC 9 months ago is now staffed with incompetents... I didn't know you could go from hero to zero quite like that - at least not in a strategic, game after game after game way. Form is temporary and class is permanent and all that? PdV may be a political favourite of SARU's board, but how long can they stand by him if he continues to lose like this? He might want his team to play expansive, attractive rugby - but his players don't buy into what he's trying to sell them. There was an absolutely spectacular example of this about half way through the second half where the Boks got a turn over and the player that grabbed the ball took off down the field. He was supported by the scrum half, so just before he was tackled he passed to his support player. That player, and probably the 4 or 5 in the ruck which produces the turn over have an excuse for not supporting the counter attack. But why were there about 5 Australians there before the second Bok arrived? I'm sure it won't surprise you to hear that the attack petered out when Australia won the ball and cleared their lines. Under Jake White if the same thing had happened the players would have charged in to form a ruck and get the ball back. It's probable that two Aussies would still have been there first, it's possible that would have been enough for them to win it back, but it would have looked like the Boks cared and were trying.

And that, I think, is the problem. The players and the coach don't trust each other. In particular, it looks as if the players don't believe that PdV can do the job, and this lack of belief manifests itself as confusion on the field of play, hence all the turn overs and generally poor play - as individuals they mostly execute their skills reasonably well most of the time, but it is in the interaction and the teamwork, particularly in the support play where it all goes to pieces because, I think, they're not quite sure what they're meant to do in the current scheme to support the play.

Will Peter de Villiers last?

When Australia beat New Zealand PdV was, for him strangely, silent. Graham Henry pointed the blame squarely (and you would have to say fairly) at mistakes by his players - particularly a run of dropping the ball and not competing at breakdowns. A week later (when SA's next big match is against NZ) when NZ win by dominating the line out, the scrum, the breakdown and basically don't turn the ball over (well not often) PdV discovers a string of refereeing errors. Graham Henry might be forgiven for missing them, but Robbie Deans didn't take that popular route of blaming the referee, he blamed his own team for poor execution. There may have been mistakes of refereeing in there of course, but outside of PdV I don't think anyone thinks there were consistent or even many such errors.

Then, this weekend just gone, PdV thinks that the referee is to blame for his side being penalised all the time. I don't remember noticing a single occasion where I thought the penalty/free kick was not given for a real offence - that's one thing. From the TV isn't pretty hard to tell if there are odd little offences on the floor unless they get a lucky camera angle. There were probably some of those that got missed, but unless PdV is omnipresent how did he see them?

In fact Paddy O'Brien, the boss of the IRB's referees is going to tear a strip off PdV and Matfield for their abusive comments about the referee. If you read his press release about it he seems, quite strongly, to suggest that the referees mistake was "not escalating the penalties appropriately" - which if you read my match report and read between the lines about the number of long-arm penalties against the Boks suggests O'Brien thinks some of the Boks should have been sent to the sin bin (in fact there were about 5 "last warnings" all to the Boks... so he might very well have a case, although you can bet it's a case PdV won't like).

Now, I'm not saying that referees are perfect - read back in this blog if you think I might even think that. There are, undoubtedly, situations when refereeing mistakes cost the team that deserves to win (AB v France in the RWC quarterfinal anyone?) but, however painful it is and however long the memory lingers it's not that common.

If, as a coach, you continuously blame the referee can I ask how you expect to motivate and develop your team? If it's all the referee's fault why should they try to improve? How do you get them to improve? How do you get them to invest in your game plan when the referee obviously doesn't want them to play that way? (Game plans that involve throwing a hand-grenade into the opponents changing rooms are frowned on after all!)

With the possible exception of Dan Carter against the Lions in the second test in 2005, no one has a perfect game. (John Eales might count in there too, given the reason for his nickname of "Nobody.") Surely part of being a coach, at any level, is to identify weaknesses in your players and in your team (in the interactions between players and the game plan) and work on ways to reduce or neutralise those weaknesses whilst looking for ways you can exploit weakness you see in the opposition. Think back to the first paragraph: in one match the ABs fail to produce at line-out, breakdown and cough up lots of simple mistakes. In the following match, against the same opposition, they beat them hands down in all those phases and in the match. They also change the game plan quite a bit. You would guess that, apart from the change in personnel, the coaches spent rather a lot of time working on the skills that had let the ABs down the previous week - and if you believe in judging with the evidence of your own eyes, you'd assume that's exactly what happened, along with the change of game plan.

If PdV continuously blames the referee, how long will it take for the Boks to slide right down the world ratings? They're down to 2nd and if Australia win this weekend, they'll be down to 3rd. Shades of England after 2003 anyone? SCW might have walked (possibly before he was pushed), Robinson couldn't reverse the decline, Ashton wasn't really given a decent run, nor the power to choose his own backroom staff. Getting the final papered over a lot of cracks in England's structure - cracks that the Six Nations earlier this year bought into harsh relief (much to Wales' glory). Will SA go the same way?

AB nil Boks at home

A match that's 5-0 after about 60 minutes doesn't sound that exciting. It certainly wasn't an advert for high-scoring rugby which many detractors think that the ELVs are all about.

However, and it's a big however, what the ELVs do is generate attacking chances if you play precisely, and put an emphasis on defending as well, because of that. To that end, the game was a roaring success and perhaps because the scores were close it was exciting. Much of the game was played within one of the 22's or the other. There were long periods of attack met by equally resolute defence - from both sides it should be said.

The difference? The All Blacks played with fewer mistakes, many fewer mistakes. At the end of the first half Kaino dropped a ball forward that stopped an attack within a few metres of the try line. It was pretty much his only mistake of the game. Muliaina knocked a ball on in the second half (in pretty much neutral territory) and it was his only mistake of the game. I don't remember Smith, Nonu, etc. making a mistake all game.

Ironically, the biggest "disaster" of all was the place kicking. Both Carter and Monty, both hugely experienced international kickers (both with over 800 test points by the end of the game) had an awful day with the boot from hand. No one seems to be sure why, and Carter had his majestic tactical kicking operating to it's inch-perfect best throughout the match, just not from hand. Given how often the Boks were penalised at the breakdown - and often long-arm penalties for deliberate offences - they never really deserved a look-in.

The AB scrum creaked a bit, but not badly, more surprisingly the Bok line out creaked rather badly - whatever Henry and his staff are doing there is obviously working.

There's really only one candidate for man of the match, despite the low error count from all of the ABs. That would be McCaw who played the whole game, beat all 5 of the back row players that the Boks put up against him to just about every breakdown, turned the ball over numerous times, slowed it down every other time and although he may or may not have been the leading tackler, every time you really needed a tackle to stop the attack there was black 7 making it.

What a difference a week makes

Last week's fiasco seems to have escaped my blogging. Perhaps because it was so painful - the match was incredibly flat because for the most part the ABs looked, frankly, inept.

Australia comfortably won every significant element of game play except the scrum, where they lost on points but never convincingly enough to matter. The ABs couldn't or wouldn't use the ball they got smartly, when they tried they coughed it up, and although there should have been a penalty try that was missed (and later apologised for) which would have made the result closer, Australia thoroughly deserved the win.

This week... well 39-10 tells the story really in a way that sometimes the result doesn't. A couple of other stats help too - the ABs dominated everywhere (Australia worked hard for their try, and probably just about deserved it on balance) but perhaps unusually they really dominated in the line out. They won MORE line outs where Australia were throwing in than line outs where they were - 8-7 in the end - and yet they didn't lose a single line out on their own throw!

There were several changes in the team. Woodcock, Hore and Somerville made a far better front row that Woodcock, Hore and Afoa - propping is one of those places where experience counts probably more than anything else and Somerville has that in spades, whereas Afoa (who might well be the real thing come the 2011 RWC) is still learning his trade.

Last week's makeshift loose forward trio was totally rejigged. McCaw completely ruled the breakdown. Kaino did the dirty work, and So'oialo was exemplary in every facet of play. On this performance you would have to say they could well be the best 3 in the world at their positions, and certainly you'd have to say if they continue to play like this, they're the top unit in the world by some distance. Thompson looks good too, whether playing with MacCaw or as a replacement. McCaw has done it before, regularly, but a side that last week lost the breakdown comprehensively to just Smith, this week won it convincingly against Smith and Waugh. That's not solely thanks to McCaw, but in a large part it was his work at each and every breakdown that did the damage.

You also have to wonder about Andy Ellis's future as an AB. Cowan just looked so much better than Ellis ever has. Now, this was, in my opinion, Cowan best game by some margin, and if you watch them in the Super-14s you would say Ellis is the better player, but if Cowan can keep this up, he will cement his place quickly. The 8, 9, 10 axis worked very nicely despite them all being from different Super-14 clubs AND Cowan having a short training session this week with his injury.

The future is in the ABs hand now - they have 2 games remaining, away in SA and away in Australia, whilst SA and Australia each have 3 games. However, if the ABs win both with a bonus point in each they've won the Tri-Nations (again) and are probably back to world #1. Win 1, lose 1 becomes more tense, lose both and they're scuppered. One thing I think this week has shown, which isn't really a shock to anyone, is that the ABs are looking a bit thin in some places. They more or less lost half a squad to retirement, injury and the lure of money playing overseas. There are replacements coming through - Afoa will be good, Thompson is a bit raw but good, Kahui looks pretty good too, Boric might well fit in nicely. Hore looks likely to keep Meealamu on the bench for a while to come but the process is slower than perhaps it should be just because so many players in so many positions have gone. That said, there's still three years to build experience and depth and although last week's loss might have been a tactical error it might also have shown Henry et al. where they need work in the months to come - and for the first time in some time there's someone that is plausible as a replacement for McCaw when he finally has to hang up his boots.

Preview Australia v SA

Everything about this match suggests SA should win. They broke their NZ hoodoo, their Carrisbrook hoodoo, the ABs home winning streak and so on, and are full of confidence.

They're playing against a side that is lacking experience of playing at the highest level (the matches against Ireland and in particular junior-France don't really count) and although Robbie Deans is a tactical genius, it will take time for Australia to adjust to playing the game his way. Has he had enough time? Will they remember what to do under pressure as well as the Crusaders (who had donkey's years of it after all)?

Additionally in terms of world scrums, AB, SA and England would be the perennial "big guns." France, on occasion Wales fight right up there too, but you're really looking at countries like Romania, Georgia etc. being ahead of Australia in the tight. Australia make up for it in general fitness and their backs, plus their loose forwards do a lot better a job of getting the ball. In line outs Australia have been right up there with SA for a while, but are they still there? Mind you, the same could be asked of SA - although their line out was solid and they did steal some AB ball, it wasn't as one sided as expected by the pundits.

And, of course, we have Gatland's and Edwards' heroics with Wales this February and March. They took a team and in very little time produced grand slam winners. They may have been helped by England self-destructing in their first match, but they still produced a team that was strong enough and canny enough to take advantage of that and come out on top. Who is the better coach? You'd probably have to go with Deans in my estimation, although it's hard to judge from the outside.

The AB fan in me hopes that Australia wins by 8 or more points whilst not scoring 4 tries, but I can't quite see that. If Australia win, it will be tight, a point or two. More likely SA win, probably not with 4 tries, but probably by 10 -15 points.

NZ 28 - 30 SA

So, SA broke their Carrisbroke duck and their 10 year losing streak, although it was really close and relied on a moment of sheer brilliance from RIcky Januarie and a couple of missed drop goals from Dan Carter.

But, that isn't really the story of the match. The referee was incredibly pedantic, and yet missed a couple of really blatant penalties, probably one each way, although the playing off the ball committed on Thompson was in a really kickable position. Whilst thinking of the referee, I'm not sure that I like the idea of "high tackle credit being used up" which is pretty much what he said. It wasn't a particularly dirty game, and whilst there were a few high tackles none of them were reckless and deserving of a yellow card in and of themselves, none of them were obvious cynical and so deserving of a yellow on that basis. Matfield missed the last 8 minutes because the ref wanted to be seen to be doing, as he had all match, and really it was purely because the ref wanted to be involved. Perhaps he (the referee that is) should get man of the match.

In the first half the tactics were a little odd... or perhaps off from the ABs. The Boks reliably and routinely isolated a player near the touchline and deep in AB territory with kicks from kick-off and from open play. The ABs responded by kicking badly (particularly Ellis) and giving the Boks territory. In the second half the ABs moved the ball around much more and looked much better for it. Saying that Smith's name wasn't mentioned in the first half is not to criticise him (he had a pretty superb second half), it reflected the fact that the Boks kicked to the wingers, and the ABs either kicked from 9 or 10, or gave the ball to Nonu to drive up to get a better position for the kick on the next phase.

The loss of Ali Williams (after a completely legal but very uncomfortable looking clash of heads with Burger left him dazed) left the AB pack looking incredibly light in experience - a total of 3 caps in the second row against Matfield and Botha - ouch! That said, the AB pack looked OK in the tight and not obviously weak at line out either (there were a couple of line outs won by the Bok off the AB throw, but it wasn't a disaster area), but no Williams and no Thorn left a hole in ball carrying and defensive alignments too.

There's also an issue at the 8-9 axis for the ABs. Kaino didn't have a great game, and Ellis didn't have one behind him either. The thing that was interesting is that when Kaino went off and Lauaki came on, Ellis looked a lot better. Perhaps a bit more training and playing together will sort out the issues between Kaino and Ellis, but if that doesn't work Henry might have to make a choice - does he want Kaino or Ellis more? Mind you, it's not clear who he would have as the new #9 if he does decide to stay with Kaino. Lauaki also had a much better game than Kaino this week, so maybe in a fortnight's time he'll get the start. No axe to grind here, I think they're both really good players, and perhaps when McCaw is fit again there will be a real tussle for the #8 shirt between the three of them -Thompson seems like a shoe in at 6 at the moment - and I don't know who would win. Perhaps keeping Lauaki as an impact player is a hint for So'oialo and Lauaki as the pair to swap with Thompson, McCaw and So'oialo as the starting lose trio?

Congratulations to the Boks. I still think they didn't deserve to win with their team selection - and they looked much more threatening when Steyn and Jantijes came on, and they didn't look weaker in defence. However, on the night, they played well enough to keep it close and that flash of inspiration gave them a win that it's hard to begrudge.

The week gone by and the match to come

South Africa seem to have been involved in a mess of off-field name calling this week. New Zealand on the other hand seem to have been rather focussed on the match to come.

There's no doubt what Thorn did to Smit was a dangerous tackle, and it should have been yellow carded at the time. Mind you, so should Smit for the grinding of Thorn's head into the ground that immediately preceded the drop. Some form of suspension is the right decision, but as dangerous tackles go, it was NOT a spear tackle (there's no driving in, he dropped him, and he didn't drop him on his head and/or neck, he didn't hit him above the line of the shoulders etc.) so a punishment towards the low end of the scale seems pretty reasonable. Thorn also has a pretty good record of not doing these things which also helps keep the penalty down. Complaining that Matfield and Botha would have got longer suspensions is not, however much Smit might like to believe it, comparing like with like - they've both been in disciplinary hot water several times - and that tends to increase the tariff (although apparently not reduce the tendency to reoffend). One week seems pretty light, but given provocation, good record and such a mildly dangerous act, not entirely unreasonable.

The irony of Smit's name calling after the repeated late hits (and the occasional late and/or high tackle when James remembered to use his arms) on Carter needs to be considered too. It's hard to believe that your #10 hits theirs so often so late without it being a planned tactic to intimidate. There is, of course, nothing wrong with intimidating the opposition #10, but there are legal ways to do it, and James' approach wasn't legal quite often. It's impossible to believe that the captain didn't know it was going to happen.

Dowd has also been back in the press for making rude comments about the SA coach. Rude enough that the SA Consul in NZ rebuked him. However, from an outsider to SARU's perspective it does seem to be a fair comment to wonder just how political de Villiers' appointment was and how good a coach he is. There may be some reasons for dropping, completely, an apparently uninjured player who was, by quite some margin, the best player you had last weekend. I'm just not sure what it was. There may be some reason for keeping two players (at 10 and 13) who didn't play so well. OK, replacing both of them is quite heavy going, but slotting Steyn in at 12, moving the current 12 out to 13, and dropping the 13 might help the 10: you get a second kicking option, and a better one than James to be honest and that could let James focus on the other parts of his game. You also move a stronger defender into that 13 channel, and you know Nonu and Smith will target that this time.

The weather forecast for Dunedin is a bit like the weather here at the moment (except they're in the depths of winter so cold and wet is what they're meant to be having) which suggests it won't be a really high scoring match again. But, you have to consider that the All Blacks have spent this week focussing on improving and playing better against their foes having seen them play in anger. The Boks appear, at least outwardly, to be stoking that anger. This could be a really ugly match, and we have a debutante test referee trying to keep control. Will he keep control by whipping the cards out? He may well need to.

The score really depends on South Africa and how well they behave, and how harshly they're punished if they don't. You could easily see the Bokke playing with 12 or 13 men if they really get up the referee's nose and the anger they're talking transfers to the pitch. If that happens, despite the cold and wet, it will be a cricket score. Even without that, my feeling is that they've weakened the team by their selections, and whilst Boric might be a weakness compared to Thorn (certainly in experience) the ABs still look strong. AB's by 15+ to grind their #1 in the world status home hard.

New Zealand 19 - 8 South Africa

As you might guess from the scoreline this was a heavily defensive match. That isn't to say that there was a lot of attacking flair on display, particularly from the All Blacks (but on occasion from the Boks too) but there was always a scrambling, scrabbling body to dot the ball, make the tackle or whatever. The scoreline was helped to look more respectable than it probably should have been by a dodgy offside call against Kaino denying him his second try in the game.

There was an interesting no try as well. I think it was the right decision, Carter kicked through and chased, Habana appeared between Carter and the ball and grounded it. BUT Carter's hand was on the ball too... you'd have to say they both grounded the ball so is that a try? The guy with two hands and a chest on the ball ought to be awarded the grounding of the ball, but I'm not sure that's what the laws say.

Speaking of the laws, the game had a lot of niggle. It would be tempting, and true, to say that was largely from the Boks, but that is because they were the ones defending for most of the game. It would also be tempting and true to say the refereeing team turned rather a blind eye to shirt pulling, late hits, high tackles and the like, particularly as the Boks tried to intimidate Carter but whilst this definitely contributed to a highly defensive match it didn't seem to spoil the match.

As expected the ABs dominated the scrums. Rather unexpectedly they very much held their own in the line out too. That was helped by avoiding kicking the ball out on most occasions, but the Boks did and the AB line out worked pretty well throughout. In fact the weakest part of the set piece, ironically, was the 8-9 axis. Kaino didn't seem to control the ball on several occasions, which put Ellis under quite a bit of pressure. Mind you, the boot was firmly on the other foot for the Bok puts-in, as their scrum creaked, groaned, went round in circles, went up, went down, went backwards (sadly often illegally and without being penalised).

I don't normally do Man of the Match comments and this time I'm really pleased I don't. I'm pretty sure that Carter will get most of the plaudits, but it would be fair to say that just about any of the ABs should have been in the running. After about 20 minutes they flashed up a little player stats thing: Conrad Smith, 3 tackles. What that didn't say was that all three were huge tackles that completely stalled a promising look Bok move dead in its tracks. Sivivatu started the game marking Habana. Until he moved off Habana each time the latter got the ball he got harassed and almost always tackled and often turned over by Sivivatu. In fairness, except for that try, Wolf did a good job too, just not as dramatically so as Sivivatu.

Nonu looked a bit anonymous in defense, but with Carter and Smith tackling out of their skins, this wasn't a weakness for the ABs, and carrying the ball forward he looked as fluent, strong and dangerous as always. I could keep going - every player, just about, had their highlights and their moments to hold their hands up and be counted, at least if they were playing in black. Burger and Jantijes get a big shout for the guys in green.

Whilst Carter might be the obvious choice, I'm torn between Thompson and So'oliao - How much higher praise can there be than "McCaw's absence wasn't a weakness" I wonder?

More on France

I caught the last 20 minutes or so of the Top 14 final yesterday. The array of international talent on display was stunning.

Over half of the Toulouse team, and just under half of the Clemont team had played in the Rugby World Cup. Not all of them for France - Kelleher being one obvious example at scrum half for Toulouse, but with a rough count from memory there were about 20 of France's RWC squad in the squads on show at home.

Whilst this made for a high octane (although not massively high scoring) and very competitive match, you've got to think that even though not all of those players would probably make the current team (retirement, form, coach's preference), it's little wonder that France looked rather poor in Australia. In fact, what is amazing is that they managed, apart from 10 minutes or so, to compete against Australia at home. Australia did deserve to win based on what I saw, but if that intercept try hadn't been scored and if France had scored one try with their 5 minutes camped 5m away from the Australia line - both important ifs, but not unlikely ones - 27-20 would probably have been a fair result and pretty achievable. That's a fair degree of testament to the strength in depth of French Rugby.

An interesting quote

"You will never get a bad All Black team. At their worst they will still be the best in the world."

The person making this statement? The coach of the current RWC holders, Peter de Villiers.

I find it fascinating because, living as I do in England we had, despite the clearly different facts on the pitch, fours years of "world champions" and there is still an arrogance that demands England be the #1 side in the world.

The facts suggest that they're not, although they do well in the RWC format. New Zealand, for whatever reason, don't do so well in RWCs but it's pretty likely that for most of the time between RWCs they will be, possibly by some margin, the #1 team in the rankings.

Whilst de Villiers might be talking up the opposition before the match, what he's saying is pretty much the truth as well - and it's so nice to see a side that can claim, legitimately, to be "world champions" not doing anything to rest on their laurels.

Australia 34 -13 France

Well, it just goes to show how sportsmen can make seeming idiots of prognosticators at first sight.

I will admit to having missed the first half, a girl's got to sleep sometimes, and Sky had been lying about where they were broadcasting it, so I taped a load of golf instead of rugby - thanks Sky!

But, really it sounds from the commentary that I didn't miss much, it ended 6-6 and was scrappy as anything.

In the second half really Australia only threatened for about 10 minutes, but they scored a hatful of tries, plus there was an interception try when the French tried to throw the ball about to get back into the match. The Australian scrum stood up OK to the French, but at ruck and maul seemed to get the upper hand most times. Inexperienced back row vs. Waugh and Smith is not a fair contest, and whilst Elsom is not in the same league of experience he was there all the time too.

Robbie Deans will be impressed with his team's defense, there were a couple of periods of concerted pressure, pretty much right on the line, where Australia kept the French at bay. It's hard to be 100% certain of how it might have been different, but I couldn't help but wonder if France, with different forwards and different backs would have played those phases differently and scored some points - but then we'd have had a totally different game. I think, to be honest, what showed was that the forwards didn't really trust the backs, and whilst it's not good form to pick out a single player for making mistakes, there were a couple of potentially good, one great, moves that fell apart with a spilled ball.

Next week - well France are still France and wildly unpredictable. But I think Australia will feel, as a team, that they've got what it takes to stop the French scoring, and that they can score against them. One thing that does need to be said though, Plaisson was the only try scorer for Les Bleus. He's tiny and he went straight through Mortlock in a way that few players ever do. If the French manage to be a bit faster and more precise, they do have the weapons to score.

Australia v France

This will be an odd match I suspect. France are definitely under-strength - loads of the regular giants of French rugby are at home given the top 14 season has still not (quite) finished - semi-finals last weekend, finals this weekend, so no players from Stade Francais, Toulouse etc. That's a LOT of big names absent.

French sides don't always travel well either, although around in Europe France don't seem to mind in most years, but this is hardly a vintage French side and the wheels could just come off.

But, at the same time this is France. Those mavericks that despite a terrible RWC at home, rose to defeat (with a lot of help from the referee and linesmen) the All Blacks. That 4 RWCs ago again rose to beat the All Blacks, convincingly. No matter how weak they appear, we all know they could do it again.

Then there is the scrum. It is a truism of French rugby that they love to scrum - but it's true, and it's almost certainly the foundation of their most sublime backs play - the fact that their forwards tend to mince up and suck in opposing forwards. This may not be the most experienced French pack, but they will still scrummage to a high level. Australia and the scrum... well we all know how suspect that can be, and although Deans may work wonders over the next 3-and-a-bit years, he's not had time to do it yet. France will almost certainly have the upper hand there, possibly enough to let their banks cut loose, and if they gel, they are certainly good enough to slice through just about any defence.

As always with France a real prediction is impossible - it depends on which France turn up. I think it's unlikely the great France will - too young, too far from home, too tired at the end of the season, to little time together will all contribute to that, but there is still that chance. Let's say about 16% that the great France will show and rip Robbie Deans' preparations to shreds - by 20 points or more. The other 84% - Australia to win, although not that convincingly: they will have the upper hand in some places, but their weakness at the scrum will stop them running away as convincingly as they might.

Kia kumite

Oh dear, oh dear.

If Hodgson was pulled for "unacceptable at test level" tackling, why was there a backline left for England? 44-12 to the All Blacks, 5 tries, all but one rather attractively scored and the fifth one still scored by slicing through England's inadequate defensive line like it wasn't there.

The studio guests tried to make a case for England's positives. But, England blew (in one case dropping over the line level of blew) 2 more opportunities for tries and I would still say that the score flatters England. England had moments when they kept the ball, but then gave the game away with stupid penalties and poor handling on a regular basis, especially in the first half. Although they kept the ball in hand a bit better, England looked ponderous in attack, absolutely lacking in pace and inspiration, only scoring from a quick tap penalty for one of their tries and from sustained pressure that finally, after about 500 phases, found a small hole in the AB defence. When you point out that the ABs lost Ali Williams after about 10 minutes and their line out suffered thereafter, and McCaw after about 20 minutes and their turn over rate didn't really suffer thereafter, if sums up the difference in class. When you add the 5 tries to the mix, well, that's it.

The scrums were rock-solid for the ABs including wheeling one and disrupting several so the ball for England was rarely good. The tackling was frankly brutal. You might see a picture of Tait covered in blood on the news - that's from a totally legal, albeit very hard hit, and it really summed up the difference.

The All Blacks do have things to work on - Lauaki had a bit of a tendency to drop the ball, McCaw's injury seemed fairly bad, but there was no news of what happened and he could be back for the Tri-Nations), and as already mentioned without Williams the AB line out suffered - the loss of that primary target meant everyone else suffered a bit more. But, you would have to say that the All Blacks came out of this with many positives and some areas to work on.

Graham Henry pulled a few rabbits, metaphorically speaking, out of the hat. Conrad Smith has real competition for his shirt, Kahui played a blinder - he made that tackle that left Tait bloody and scored a try. Who was Jerry Collins? Thompson had a couple of jittery bits, but otherwise played a blinder, and was only denied a try by a questionable call from the TMO (albeit a very hard call in fairness).

England came out of it with a shattered look and I bet they're pleased they're leaving tomorrow, I bet some wish they were leaving tonight to be spared the press in the morning. You have to wonder what Johnson can do. Where can he go? England's ultra-defensive line-up were shredded. Their youth have been demoralised and outplayed, their old hands rarely held those hands up.

There was great skill shown - but only by one side. Worryingly for the rest of the world, Carter looked like a star, but he didn't shine alone. 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 all looked wonderful, and 11 didn't do a bad job either, he just got used less so didn't shine, but he looked good enough. The pack away from the line outs all looked great too, and outplayed their opposites. Poor Ellis is the only person not to get a mention for looking great. He, like, 11, played a thoroughly sound game, he chivied forwards, fed backs as required, and never looked in trouble. He didn't really need to spark the world alight because everyone around him was doing that today.

McCaw and naughty England, SA v Italy, Second Test etc.

I appreciate that the players have a close up view of what goes on in rucks, mauls and scrums that we don't get - and that the referees don't get too. But you do have to wonder sometimes - Northern Hemisphere sides, particularly England, have been moaning that Richie McCaw cheats all the time for the last 7 years or so. Do they honestly believe he mesmerises the referee so he can get away with stuff that they can't?

I will concede that referees can have bad games, but bad games every time they referee McCaw throughout his first class and international career? Please, do me a favour, assume I can think. Although I have a story about wingeing Aussies that would destroy the wingeing Poms stereotype forever, you do have to think this is what's going on in this case. McCaw didn't have it all his own way last weekend, but still the management and now the players are saying "He's such a cheat." Yes, again. What crap.

Whilst we're at it, I'm not sure that the big penalty that was given against him, that had Barnes baying for a yellow card, was correct. I'm not an expert in the laws, so I could be wrong, but he was done for offside. However, he was a tackler - he'd clearly been involved in the tackle, gone to ground as had the player he tackled. There was a second AB in the tackle, but that doesn't matter. A ruck hadn't formed (a ruck requires additional players from both sides make contact over the ball) and as the tackler he is entitled to play the ball from wherever he likes. Perhaps I've got the laws wrong, perhaps I didn't see clearly, but oh well. Over on SA referees someone else asked the question - and Jonathan Kaplan thought McCaw might have had a point too (last question). I'd like to say that although I think the decision was wrong, that's not to say I thought Owen had a bad game overall. He rarely makes mistakes, he certainly plays what he sees (right or wrong, can you ask for more?) and although I think he did make a mistake this time, we're all entitled to, every now and again.



In the meantime, it appears 4 England players are "helping the police with their enquiries" about a major incident in their hotel in Auckland. Oops! Pot, kettle... bending the laws on the field of play one thing, bending the laws of the land - oh dear.

Second test prediction - Despite several changes to the AB line-up and the introduction of a surprising amount of "fresh blood" NZ to win comfortably. Not as comfortably as if they'd gone in with the same side, but England are certainly weakened by the loss of Sheridan, their offence is weakened by the loss of Hodgson, and although their mid-field defence is strengthened, NZ can and will attack from enough different places and different angles that it won't really matter.

Poor Italy... Italy don't, generally, travel well - look at their Six Nations results. South Africa are currently making a better fist of defending the RWC-holders tag than England ever did, and have fielded a strong looking side. South Africa at home are always a challenge, and this will be a challenge too far, probably much too far, for Italy. This could easily be a 50+ point margin of victory, and it could be a 70+ point margin. South Africa will score, and their line won't be threatened unless Italy have found a better number 10 (or the 6N incumbent has improved his skills markedly).