November is a month when the clocks have just gone back and darkness descends on the home unions in the form of the major southern hemisphere nations. This year there is some light to tickle the green shoots of hope: the All Blacks are not venturing into Britain, the Wallabies are wobbling and the Boks have lost their spring.
Australia start their five-match tour in Cardiff on Saturday5 November. Given the combustibility of their head coach, Michael Cheika, in recent months – he raged in his media conference after the Auckland defeat to New Zealand last Saturday having been depicted as a clown in a newspaper on the morning of the match – it could be a bonfire of the profanities. It is a fixture Wales have not won for eight years, losing 11 in a row in a period when England, Scotland and Ireland have all beaten the Wallabies.
The following day, in another Test outside the official window, Ireland face the All Blacks in Chicago. The New Zealand Rugby Union has stopped playing fourth internationals against England and Wales because neither country was prepared to pay the £2m appearance fee demanded, so it is looking to establish a commercial relationship with the United States having played the USA at Soldier Field two years ago and attracted a sell-out crowd.
The Australian Rugby Union, which is in desperate need of extra revenue, has arranged two further internationals, Cardiff followed by Twickenham in December. Their demands are more modest than the All Blacks’, reflecting the pulling power of the two national sides, and the ARU will bank slightly less than £2m in a year when the Wallabies will play 15 Tests, more than any other side.
Coaches of the three major countries in the south used to be asked a common question when they arrived on autumn tours, apart from the period when Clive Woodward’s England swept all before it: why is there a gap between the game in the two hemispheres? The gap now is between New Zealand, who last weekend set a world record for consecutive Test victories, 18, and the rest. England are second to them in the world rankings, a long way behind but with a healthy lead over Australia and South Africa.
“New Zealand have shown they are the best team in the world,” says Eddie Jones, before congratulating them on their new record, in contrast to Cheika, who has refused to do so. “The bunch behind New Zealand is very tight and what we’re trying to do is extricate ourselves from it, but Australia last weekend took them to a place they had not been for a while and it showed there is an opportunity to get at them. One of the things we have to do this month is get our psychology right because history plays a part in influencing attitudes in Test matches.”
England begin their four-match series against South Africa on Saturday 12 November. It is 10 years since they defeated the Springboks; a draw is the most Ireland have got out of 28 meetings with New Zealand, opponents Scotland have never beaten although they have mustered two draws, while Wales come up with various ways of losing to Australia, failing to score a try against them in last year’s World Cup when they played against 13 men for eight minutes.
“The physical side of rugby is always part of the game, but what separates teams is the ability to be psychologically right,” says Jones, which explains why for some it is all in the mind games. “One of the big things about our training camp in Portugal [this coming week] is getting our psychology right because it has not been over a period of time. It is about the leadership group of the team working together so that when we play South Africa we are prepared for what they will bring and we are prepared for what they might bring.”
England are fresh from a 3-0 whitewash of Australia in the summer but a feature of the autumn series over the years has been the ability of the south’s big three (who have been joined in the Rugby Championship by Argentina, whose tier-one status means they will play Wales, Scotland and England next month) to nick tight matches at the end, often by scoring a try rather than gratefully kicking a penalty. Wales thought they had beaten Australia in 2012 only for Dave Dennis to create an opening for Kurtley Beale in the final minute and when Wales toured South Africa in 2014, they looked to have won their first Test there until they conceded a penalty try at the death in Nelspruit.
Ireland were seconds away from defeating the All Blacks the last time the two sides met in Dublin in 2013. They were leading by five points having taken a 19-0 lead in the first half, surprising the All Blacks not by their ferocity and intensity but by their ability to recycle the ball quickly. It did not last long enough and Ireland did not score a point in the second period, but they looked to have seen out the game when the All Blacks broke from their own half, Ryan Crotty scored in the corner and Aaron Cruden took the consolation of a draw away from the home side with a re-taken conversion.
Two years ago, England came from 20-6 down to draw level with South Africa at Twickenham. They had the momentum but, at that point the Springboks looked vulnerable, the flanker Schalk Burger scored a try to deflate their hosts. In their previous meeting, in 2012, South Africa had won by a point after England opted to kick a late penalty rather than go for a lineout for a potential match-winning try and did not have enough time to get back into their opponents’ half. As legs tired, minds shut down.
It explains why in the last six autumn series, the southern hemisphere have won 40 Tests and lost 11; the 2009 meeting between Ireland and Australia was a draw. England have four victories, Ireland three with Wales, who defeated South Africa in their last November international two years ago, and Scotland, who often belie their Six Nations position this time of the year while still struggling to score tries, on two.
This weekend is the anniversary of the 2015 World Cup final at Twickenham, a tournament that for the first time was without a European semi-finalist. The Rugby Championship supplied all four and talk of the gap resurfaced, yet what has happened since, with the exception of the All Blacks who seem to operate in their own dimension, makes the 2014 autumn series as relevant. That year, both Australia and South Africa lost more matches than they won, leaving New Zealand’s three victories – and they trailed at one point to England, Scotland and Wales – to make it 5-4 to the south. The Wallabies and the Springboks both fortified themselves in the World Cup with veterans, most of whom have gone back to their pension policies.
The Wales interim head coach, Rob Howley, does not believe that his players have mental issues when it comes to Australia, even if so many defeats in the closing stages would suggest otherwise. Teams from the south tend to use their head to get ahead; the pity next month is that England are not facing the All Blacks and will not do so for another two years because of the tour schedule and the All Blacks’ high appearance fee. Jones has two years to get his players’ minds in tune with their bodies so that when the light starts to fail, someone is holding a torch.
.jpg?w=600)
