The perfect game from an imperfect performance

When riding the tube in London, at certain stations there is a warning broadcasted over the PA system to mind the gap. Invariably at these stations, there is no real discernible gap between the train and the platform.

However, there are certain stations that warrant a warning and there is none forthcoming. Only the memory of previous stations might prevent you from losing your foot or a small child down the sizeable hole.

In professional rugby, the Northern Hemisphere teams have usually been below the SANZAR nations in the rankings. England bucked the trend in 2002-3, and lately have made fleeting entries into third position, France do their best at an imitation of a seismograph, capable of earth-shattering performances only for the earth to open up and swallow them.

As we speak, there is probably a smart entrepreneur printing off Rugby World Cup t-shirts with Mind the Gap written on them and the William Ebb Ellis falling down a giant crack with a train full of South African, New Zealand and Australian supporters about to alight at Three Cups Station.

There was fighting talk from our resident South African gurus of the Southern Hemisphere uniting under a collective banner to put the Northern Hemisphere in their place.

So far New Zealand’s 8-point win against Scotland is the biggest winning margin from the Southern Hemisphere sides, with Australia’s 33-28 win against Wales the next biggest.

Add in Argentina, who lost by 10 points to Scotland and then secured a two-point win against Italy and you wonder if Fiji’s narrow loss to Wales deserves to be the standout Southern Hemisphere performance so far.

Ireland and England have notable injury absences but the former secured a convincing win against South Africa and the latter held the number one and two ranked teams to three points.

England are masters of taking positives from defeat. I say that as a compliment rather than a criticism. Much like Australia against New Zealand, the previous results do not tend to worry them. They believe they can win the next game because they know they have beaten these sides.

Indeed, Stuart Lancaster incredibly had his contract extended to 2019 on the back of three defeats to New Zealand in June. He now has five consecutive defeats and a meagre return of a victory against New Zealand in 2012 and Australia last year to show for against the SANZA sides.

When you consider the last Wallaby coach was ousted on the back of three consecutive defeats, it appears that English scribes are more forgiving of Lancaster’s errors provided that his team stays within a score of their victors.

Their backs may need work and the balance of their back row is in doubt, but England have solidity in set piece. When your team can secure enough possession, you always give yourselves a good chance of getting the right result.

France showed against Australia that they too can disregard previous results and have a forward pack that can get them enough ball. A 3-0 whitewash in June saw France only make a real challenge in the second Test but it did not seem to faze them last night.

Ireland have traditionally struggled in depth. Their first team is capable of causing an upset but in the past when a few frontline players have been out, there has been a noticeable decline in performance.

The Kiwi coach, Joe Schmidt, has probably shown the more conservative Stuart Lancaster and Phillipe Saint-André in his brief tenure of the Ireland team how innovative tactics are capable of securing victories on a more consistent basis.

That may seem harsh on Stuart Lancaster’s men who were only a few points away from a Grand Slam – losing to a France that seemed only goaded into adventurous rugby when time was almost up on the clock – and most of their defeats against the top sides have been within a score of either a penalty or a try.

The match this weekend against Australia might well prove to be a watershed moment. Ireland might shake off their preferred underdog status and come into the match as deserved favourites, given their recent results. Win well there and nobody will be taking them lightly next year.

In the past Ireland have been able to come up with a big performance against a top-ranked side only to falter in the following match. The psychological drain of lifting themselves for a repeat performance has appeared beyond them.

Their Six Nations performance showed that their performance against New Zealand was not a one-off performance. They are building consistency as well as momentum and I for one am hoping they can top their group and do some damage on the other side of New Zealand’s draw.

So we come to the match last night at Murrayfield. The players made the ball appear to be a slippery bar of soap and the passing was abject.

Nonetheless, it remained a tight contest and Steve Hansen described it as the perfect game in terms of preparation for next year.

That may sound like a strange comment after New Zealand put in arguably a weaker performance than their limp wet-weather performance in Sydney.

The New Zealand lineout was terrible and only a surprising solid scrum made this glaring deficiency not stand out more. Sam Whitelock is a great player but to me the player who determines whether our lineout functions well or not is Kieran Read.

People might put the blame on the rookie Jamie Parsons, who was planning to head to Paris after his Barbarians match for a wedding anniversary. His performance was no fairytale and he was pulled from the field early in the second half.

Kieran Read is the man who calls the lineouts and he is also the go-to man, taking more throws than Sam Whitelock. Victor Vito is a supreme athlete but he is no jumper.

This match showed to Steve Hansen that Read is not the only indispensable player we have. TJ Perenara is nowhere near the level of Aaron Smith and Julian Savea has no equivalent.

Charles Piutau seems to be off the pace he had before his long injury, and although industrious out wide, he lacked the power and penetration of Savea, who made a notable an impact coming off the bench.

The rookie centre combination of Ryan Crotty and Malakai Fekitoa was symptomatic of a team that had 12 changes, and essentially the entire team in terms of positional changes to the one that came up against England last week.

Hansen will have discovered that a side with so many changes cannot expect to have continuity and polish in their performance from one week to the next.

New Zealand might well get away with changing the entire team between pool games but if they do not want to be ambushed in their quarter-final match-up next year at the Millennium Stadium, they need to have more or less the same side that played in the last pool game against Tonga.

Scotland did New Zealand a favour in their spirited defence, mirroring what they will encounter in a World Cup. I thought Romain Poite allowed both sides to creep well offside both at ruck time and in open play.

As a result, the New Zealand backline was reduced largely to shovelling sideways. A team has to earn the right to go out wide and invariably the ball the New Zealand backs received was slow and met with a defensive line that was quickly up in their faces because the previous phases had not got over the advantage line.

The passing was not crisp and often behind the players or at head height, checking the rhythm of the play. Scotland were not fooled into coming out in attack with the dummy runners to leave space and when they did they scored an intercept try and were a fingertip away from scoring another.

To say that the New Zealand backs were predictable would be like saying the temperature at Murrayfield was cold and the dew on the ground substantial.

Daniel Carter was a microcosm of the entire backline. Unfamiliar, out of match practice and flattering to deceive. The lack of fluidity and combinations were all too evident.

Contrast Carter’s last performance at Murrayfield, when New Zealand clocked up fifty points and Carter put in a master display, and the same could be said for New Zealand’s overall performance.

The Scottish defence the last time the two sides met were at sixes and sevens. Carter and Sonny Bill Williams had a field day and made inroads seemingly at will.

This time the Scottish defence was much more robust. The New Zealand lineout was a shambles and so a vital attacking platform went missing. Scotland showed that if you build phases and put New Zealand on the back foot, they struggle just like any other team.

Moreover, you cannot hope to make inroads out wide if you fail to get over the advantage line in the forwards and get the opposite defensive line tracking backwards.

The breakdown became a free-for-all on both sides and New Zealand were unable to clear the ball away crisply and quickly. Jeremy Thrush and Luke Romano were industrious and accurate but Dominic Bird, Joe Moody and Jamie Parsons were a noticeable few levels below the regular starters.

However, the reason why I think Hansen is on the whole happy with the games so far is that a Plan B seems to be successful in its execution.

That is to say, when the New Zealand backs are up against the wall and they are failing to get over the advantage line in the backs, they are able to execute ABC rugby and keep both territorial advantage and possession.

The only pleasing period of play for me in the whole game was around halfway through the second half and despite adventure from Scotland and determined attack rather than clearing kicks, they simply could not get out of their 22.

The New Zealand defence seems capable of small but decisive periods of getting up in the opposition’s faces and stifling all attempts to get out of their danger zone.

Not only do they prevent the opposition from getting any territorial gain, they soak up time and wear down the opposition.

Usually, it is more tiring to defend than attack. New Zealand seem capable of being able to build phases and not have the ball stolen. They might lack adventure or creativity in the backs but they seem to be able to control their destiny in the forwards to get them out of tough situations.

The fact that Jeremy Thrush scored the decisive try is indicative of a team that seems incapable at this point in time of penetrating through the backs but capable of building enough forward momentum to play the match in the key part of the ground and stay out of their own half.

In an overall performance where it is hard to find many positives, this was the essential difference between the two sides. Scotland were able to accumulate penalties from Greig Laidlaw – how cruel for him, like Johnathan Sexton last year, that he wasn’t able to convert that last chance to take the lead – but other than the intercept opportunities, they were not able to create chances of their own.

This is the perfect preparation Hansen is talking about. He wants his teams to be under pressure as he knows that is what they will face in the business end of the tournament next year.

He knows teams will place his side under pressure and dominate large periods of the game. He knows continuity will be disrupted by injury but needs a clear idea of who he can rely on if he needs to call up injury cover.

That was a frustrating match to watch but with Wales next week and as many top team replacements starting, Hansen will still be forced to make injury changes.

Ben Smith needs a break, and Israel Dagg will be back at fullback with Smith likely moving back to the wing. Conrad Smith will be back, which means he will probably prefer his understudy Crotty to Fekitoa as the balance will be retained.

Kaino and Retallick might be fit but maybe Hansen will persist with Thrush to partner Whitelock and give Romano another hit-out late in the game. Messam might well start if Kaino can’t play and put Cane on the bench.

The Carter road to recovery will be stopped and Cruden and Barrett will partner up again. Smith will return as will the front row. Hopefully there will still be visible slap marks over Wyatt Crockett who gave away a needless penalty that could well have surrendered the lead to Scotland late in the game.

The trick will be finding continuity after so many changes and a midfield that hasn’t really formed any combination together or with the halves inside them.

Wales have been struggling but there’s no doubt that Warren Gatland will get his players performing above their current form for this match. That gives Hansen’s side a real taste of what they will feel with their last pool match and their first quarter-final match.

As we have seen this November, the gap that keeps being talked about is not really there. Let us not focus on results but, rather, performance. No one side has dominated so far. Ireland looks to be the best performing side thus far, but their match against Australia should give us a clearer idea of where they stand.

When the Southern Hemisphere teams get in their head that there is a gap, that’s when they realise, all too late, that the gap is really their perception of the teams they face and their seeming inability to bridge that gap between the top-ranked sides.

The one positive that can be taken from this November tour is that this fictional gap has been revealed for just that. All the Southern Hemisphere teams are fully aware of what awaits them next year and that any side caught napping will be punished.

The end of pool play means a team has to get through three tough knockout games in order to lift the trophy. That means relying on the bulk of your top side to make that happen but along the way there will inevitably be injuries and disruptions will occur.

Furthermore, not only will continuity be disrupted by injuries or form. During the knockout matches, teams will find that the opposition will get the better of them in certain periods of the game.

Knowing how to overcome those troughs during games and finding a way to wrestle back control is an important lesson to learn. For that reason, the far-from-perfect performances we have seen so far from all the teams will stand them in good stead for the following year.

These are lessons that do not have to be learned here and now. Regardless of the results this November, all the teams will be stronger for the experience. The trick is to know how to do it when it counts and how to ride out periods when the opposition is dominating you.

Some teams are better placed to doing that than others and this is the real gap as it stands now. It’s not one built on imaginary lines between north and south. It’s one built on teams that know how to get themselves out of dark spots and their ability to play more than one type of game if necessary in order to do that.