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Rugby world order jolted by July Tests
By AAP
The winds of change have swept through international rugby in the past few weeks, with historic firsts and a potential changing of the guard at the top of the world game as northern hemisphere teams excelled down south.
Ireland's first series victory in New Zealand has sent them rocketing to the top of the global rankings while their outclassed hosts dropped to fourth, their lowest ever ranking.
England claimed a 2-1 series victory in Australia and Wales gave world champions South Africa a mighty scare by claiming a first away win against the Springboks before ultimately losing the series.
With little more than 14 months till the Rugby World Cup in France, this month's internationals suggest the tournament will be wide open.
New Zealand in particular will need to rediscover their mojo.
They have lost four of their past five Tests, piling pressure on coach Ian Foster, who refused to discuss his future after the latest defeat.
"For some reason we're just not as calm," Foster told reporters.
"In the defence area we're getting a bit fidgety. New Zealanders have got to realise that this was a very good Irish team; they deserve their time in the sun."
Irish eyes may be smiling, but Ireland have a history of peaking between World Cups and now face the significant challenge of carrying recent momentum into next year.
"I have talked about the leadership group, how they've grown and developed, and we've coached this team together," coach Andy Farrell said.
"It's the most proud I've been as part of a group."
South Africa's superiority finally showed in their 30-14 third Test win over Wales in Cape Town to clinch that series, but there is no doubt they were rocked by the tourists.
Wales might have won the first test as well had they shown more composure in Pretoria.
"We're very pleased; the positives outweigh the negatives," Wales coach Wayne Pivac said of their tour.
"It was a big step in the right direction."
Following their series win in Australia, England coach Eddie Jones believes his side are in a "great position" ahead of their World Cup campaign.
"It is a really positive step, we always felt the team was going in the right direction. Sometimes results don't reflect that," Jones told Sky Sports.
"It is like training a racehorse. We don't want to be at our best until the World Cup finals; we need to keep building the base, the depth, the competition and our style of play. We are in a good position."
Argentina's dramatic 34-31 victory over Scotland in Santiago secured their series 2-1.
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Latest Comments
Nah, that just needs some more variation. Chip kicks, grubber stabs, all those. Will Jordan showed a pretty good reason why the rush was bad for his link up with BB.
If you have an overlap on a rush defense, they naturally cover out and out and leave a huge gap near the ruck.
It also helps if both teams play the same rules. ARs set the offside line 1m past where the last mans feet were😅
Go to commentsYeah nar, should work for sure. I was just asking why would you do it that way?
It could be achieved by outsourcing all your IP and players to New Zealand, Japan, and America, with a big Super competition between those countries raking it in with all of Australia's best talent to help them at a club level. When there is enough of a following and players coming through internally, and from other international countries (starting out like Australia/without a pro scene), for these high profile clubs to compete without a heavy australian base, then RA could use all the money they'd saved over the decades to turn things around at home and fund 4 super sides of their own that would be good enough to compete.
That sounds like a great model to reset the game in Aus. Take a couple of decades to invest in youth and community networks before trying to become professional again. I just suggest most aussies would be a bit more optimistic they can make it work without the two decades without any pro club rugby bit.
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