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The north beats the south in weekend rugby

Roar Guru
12th November, 2017
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Ireland's Johnny Sexton. (AFP PHOTO / IAN MACNICOL)
Roar Guru
12th November, 2017
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On Saturday, six teams from the southern hemisphere squared off against six teams from the northern hemisphere. The north came out on top 4 – 2.

The scores: Ireland 38, South Africa 3. England 21, Argentina 8. Scotland 44, Samoa 38. Italy 19, Fiji 10. All Blacks 38, France 18. Australia 29, Wales, 21.

It was an all-time record score for Ireland over the Boks with Sexton MOTM and the usual suspects having strong games and NZ-born Bundee Aki drawing raves in the midfield.

Eddie Jones was furious with Team England. They’d trained so well and played so ordinarily. Dull and lifeless summed it up although they unearthed a fine new seven in Sam Underhill who hits like a steam hammer. Maro Itoje and Owen Farrell will be back for Saturday’s game against the Wallabies which is not good news for Oz fans.

The Scots/Samoan game was described as bizarre. Eleven tries with both sides playing poorly. Scottish fans had hoped their team would show some maturity ahead of next week’s clash with the All Blacks. Instead, they’re battering down the hatches.

As for the All Blacks, few people feel they’re playing like the creme de la creme of world rugby. And it doesn’t help when Sonny Bill Williams gives away a penalty try by batting a French cross-kick dead from the in-goal area. Steve Hansen’s probably glad his guys are not going up against Ireland this trip.

Most Roarers will have seen the Wallabies being less than terrific against Wales. The Samu Kerevi experiment didn’t work so look for Michael Cheika to play Kurtley Beale at 12 against England to get some thrust into the attack. Or not. MC is hard to second guess. Oh, how we miss Israel Folau and David Pocock and one or two other players who don’t even exist.

The consensus re the weekend’s rugby is that it illustrated how cluttered the game has become, and how nothing has been done to fix the boring spectacle of scrum resets.

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Also, it’s a little weird to see pros who’ve been playing since they were kids dropping simple passes. Yes, Test matches bring their own kind of pressure, but most of the guilty parties are hardly new to international rugby.

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