With an experimental All Blacks side, a Jekyll and Hyde South Africa and a poor Argentina team it is fair to say Australia have breathed some much-needed life into the autumn internationals. Their recent win over New Zealand is a huge shot in the arm for them and it means their game at Twickenham is the pick of the whole autumn, though England and Ireland have every right to be confident of going unbeaten through November.
The British & Irish Lions’ success in drawing their summer series is a big factor in that – of course, so is the fact that neither side play New Zealand – but I also believe the recent law amendments give the northern hemisphere an advantage on top of that, especially in this weekend’s matches before the south, who are yet to introduce them, have a chance to adapt.
In particular the advantage comes at the breakdown where in the Premiership and in Europe we are seeing more defenders fanning out across the field which, in turn, means now you can have up to 14 men in the defensive line. It is cutting down the space on the field and it means the player with the ball is running into two tacklers a lot of the time – that suits England and how they defend. The opposing teams will find that hard to break down and the same goes for Ireland.
I always tend to look at things from a southern hemisphere point of view and I reckon the north can be confident of coming out on top in the series on the whole. But, if that does happen, we should not write off the south or call it a terminal decline.
That kind of thing happening to Australia has been talked about for years – perhaps we are now seeing the fruits of their earlier problems – and it is nothing new. And unlike the All Blacks, Michael Cheika is coming with his strongest side, apart from Israel Folau, because now is the time he will want to breed a winning mentality. And what better time to do it having just beaten the All Blacks?
Cheika also has the player I am most looking forward to seeing in his ranks. Reece Hodge has been a really big find for Australia; he has a big boot, he can play in the centres and outside backs – he is the Australian version of Elliot Daly and, if you give away a penalty anywhere near your own half, he can bang it over.
For South Africa there is the crazy inconsistency of getting thrashed by the All Blacks 57-0 and then losing by a point in a match they did pretty much everything but win. Their game against Ireland on Saturday is perhaps the most interesting of the weekend because it will be instructive as to exactly how both sides will play at the World Cup in 2019.
Ireland look as if they are still playing the territory-based game. Joe Schmidt has some really good attacking ideas but I think with Johnny Sexton there, they still want to pin you down and suffocate you in areas you don’t want to be. And that is when the mistakes come.
I thought South Africa might give Handre Pollard a chance at No10 to combat that, because he has a really good kicking game. But having said that, Elton Jantjies has a bit more spark and the ability to bring those big centres – Damian de Allende and Jesse Kriel – into the match. The narrow defeat by New Zealand will be a bit of blueprint of what they will look to do. It is all about making sure that the set piece is right first of all and they then get their big ball-carriers into the game, over the gain-line, and once the defence is going back it is unable to get that line speed.
Whereas Australia and South Africa cannot really afford to experiment, that is precisely what New Zealand are doing. I’m looking forward to the Wales game – partly for the fanfare surrounding Steve Hansen and Warren Gatland – but mainly because of how Wales demonstrated ambition when they were down there in 2016. I was really impressed by that but they need to start doing it at home and the big question for them is whether they have the belief to do so.
For the All Blacks one of Hansen’s mottos at the moment is about getting his players to “be comfortable being uncomfortable”. I think that is what Eddie Jones picked up on recently when he was paying New Zealand compliments, and we definitely saw it in the Barbarians match. We saw the rustiness and we saw some guys perform under pressure and some guys maybe not able to do so. From the All Blacks we are going to see Hansen and co putting the team under that kind of pressure to see how they cope and to try to improve the depth of the squad because, when it comes to the World Cup, it is the pinnacle of being uncomfortable.
To a certain extent New Zealand have been working more on integrating the forwards but they are still deadly on that transition from defence to attack, which has always been the hallmark of All Blacks rugby. When it comes to training, everyone can do a drill but when you have multiple aspects to it, then you can see how people operate under pressure. The ultimate is how your skills stack up under pressure, how quickly you can think and how quickly you can act. New Zealand do a lot of that. With their skill level under pressure they are the best in the world, and everyone is trying to catch up with that.
Eddie Jones has been very smart, giving his Lions a kick up the backside to get that extra few per cent out of them. They start against an Argentina side who have really struggled away from home recently – the move to the Rugby Championship was supposed to improve them but it has not worked so I cannot see many problems for England. I am also really pleased Eddie’s given Henry Slade a chance but by the end of the autumn I still expect everyone else, England included, will be playing catch-up.
