A long season ends for Wales, England and Ireland and a three-Test tour starts to the leading three countries in the world rankings for players who in a year’s time will be heavily involved in the Lions tour to New Zealand. Talks about a global season rumble on, but the two hemispheres appear no closer than the Remain and Leave sides in the European Union referendum debate.
And so players who merit a rest almost a year after coming into their respective camps to begin preparing for the World Cup step once more into the breach. Player welfare remains a concept rather than a policy as tradition mingles with suspicion and far more is said than achieved.
At least England have the Eddie Jones bounce in their luggage for Australia, six wins out of six in his tenure, including last Sunday’s surprisingly comfortable victory over Wales who as they sat in business class on the flight(s) to Auckland needed to find ways of meaning business again.
Perhaps the most interesting tour is Ireland’s to South Africa who, like the All Blacks, have shed a wealth of experience after the World Cup without having as much tested back-up to come in. And they have a new head coach in Allister Coetzee whose first squad of 31 players included 12 who were non-white, meeting the government’s transformation policy more than his predecessor, Heyneke Meyer. By the 2019 World Cup, the current 38% of non-white players must increase to 50.
Unless the transformation targets are met, there will be no official backing for the South African union’s bid to host the 2023 World Cup. Coetzee, the former Stormers’ coach, is taking over at a difficult time politically as well as on the field where only the Lions have been letting rip in Super Rugby, and then not against New Zealand sides after an early victory at the Chiefs.
There will be no Victor Matfield, Schalk Burger, the Du Plessis brothers, Bryan Habana, Fourie du Preez, Jean de Villiers or Ruan Pienaar facing Ireland. Coetzee’s first squad contains 14 of the 23 who were involved in the third-place World Cup play-off against Argentina last October and some of those called up, such as the Sharks’ fly-half Garth April, were not in contention even a few months ago, like the England prop Ellis Genge.
Whereas Meyer, as the World Cup dawned, reverted to experience, Coetzee is giving youth a fling, only partly through necessity. He has only picked three players who are based outside South Africa and his squad does not include anyone who was involved in the 2007 World Cup success. The Springboks have a core of experience: JP Pietersen and Tendai Mtawarira are the two survivors from the 2009 series against the Lions while Duane Vermeulen, Francois Louw, Eben Etzebeth, Adriaan Strauss, the captain and a cousin of the Ireland hooker, Richardt Strauss, and Willie le Roux are established internationals with Jesse Kriel and Damian de Allende a pair of centres who stood out last year.
The winners have gone. Nine of the 31 are uncapped while only eight have played more than 30 Tests. Ten of the team that started last year’s World Cup semi-final against New Zealand had won more than 30 caps and South Africa, throughout history the closest rivals of the All Blacks in terms of achievement, are at a crossroads, their future hinging on the mix and the quality of players who emerge from their development system.
Coetzee, like Jones, is looking to turn a team renowned for its prowess in the set pieces into one that does the unexpected in attack, which is one reason why April, a fly-half who attacks the line and gets the ball wide, has profited from the unavailability of Handre Pollard. “We cannot just chuck away what has been the strength of Springbok rugby,” said Coetzee. “We love abrasiveness and the collisions. That will never go away. One area where we can evolve is the speed at which we do things. That is what we need to get right. It is not something you will see overnight: the game is tough at the top, but if you have the right people and they buy into the plan, we can compete.”
The Stormers under Coetzee played with fluidity, but he will not have a honeymoon period. “South Africans are not very loyal: if you get beaten by the Irish, we are going to start digging up things we never knew about you,” Fikile Mbalula, the sports minister, told Coetzee after the head coach’s appointment earlier this year. And so Coetzee must blood a new generation of players, meet the transformation policy and win.
Ireland may not have had a Six Nations to remember after winning the tournament in 2014 and 2015, but they came back to draw with Wales after blowing a lead and lost by a point to France in Paris. They led England at one point in the second-half at Twickenham but were ultimately undermined by injuries at a time when they had to replace Paul O’Connell.
In charge of Ireland’s defence will be Andy Farrell, who a year ago was helping England prepare for the World Cup. They are not injury free and their head coach Joe Schmidt is not a Coetzee, or a Jones, when it comes to throwing in young players early, but on their first tour to South Africa since 2003, they will travel in more than hope.
Like England and Wales, they will have the advantage in the first Test of being better prepared with the southern hemisphere nations not having played an international since the World Cup. Jones and the Wales head coach, Warren Gatland, are returning to their homelands, which in the case of the former should be fun.
Jones has transformed the European landscape, leaving Wales and Ireland, the champions of the Six Nations between the last two World Cups, having to catch up. Gatland and Schmidt both made an immediate impact, but Wales and Ireland do not have the playing or financial resources of England which Jones is threatening to make the most of.
Gatland needs to get his mojo back having drawn into himself, giving Jones a free run with the media. Some Wales players lost their heads at Twickenham in the second half and need one of the most successful coaches ever in Europe to respond.
• This is an extract taken from The Breakdown, the Guardian’s weekly rugby union email. To subscribe, just visit this page, find The Breakdown and follow the instructions.
