Rugby's mid-term world report card

Now is the time for a mid-term world rugby report. A lot more rugby has been played in the past month than the four southern hemisphere nations, Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and South Africa going north for their annual migration.

A whole series of cross-region and cross-tiered matches were held this year, the biggest ever and were meant as a World Cup rehearsal and to gauge the standard of each other.

In fact, it was Germany, newly promoted to Europe’s top series, who started the ball rolling. For the first time ever, they travelled to Namibia, a German colony up to the end of WWI, to play a one off match in Windhoek.

Namibia, who are in the World Cup finals, proved much too strong, winning, 58-20, in an open game.

Less than a week later, Namibia flew to Ireland to meet Canada. In a game where both teams were rusty, the Canucks prevailed, 19-13. Namibia then went to Lisbon for final tour game against top European division team, Portugal.

Los Lobos were quick to take control and scored four tries to two for Portugal to register a well-deserved, 29-20, win over Namibia.

The USA, fresh from its hammering by the All Blacks, travelled to Romania and soundly beat the locals, 27-17. Playing for the newly instituted Pershing Cup, the Americans led 17-3 at half time and Romania could only play catch-up.

Two weeks later, Canada arrived in Bucharest to play the Oaks but could not emulate their southern neighbours. In a dour match, Romania scored six penalties to three for an 18-9 scoreline to beat Canada.

Meanwhile, Russia went to Hong Kong for a two-match series. Both made the previous World Cup but in Hong Kong they were both beaten by Uruguay – Hong Kong in the semi-final and Russia in the final. Usually, Russia does not travel well but they beat Hong Kong, 31-10 in the opening game then, 39-27, in the next, a week later.

The New Zealand Maori went to Japan to give the locals two warm-up games to prepare for the coming internationals. The opener had the Maori easy winners, running away with the match, 61-21, but the second game was much closer.

Japan led until the final play of the match and allowed Maori to score a try and edge past them, 20-18. These games had the right effect on Japan as the following week, Romania went to Tokyo for a one-off game.

Romania scored the only try, a penalty try, while fullback, Ayumu Goromaru slotted six penalty goals to give the Brave Blossoms, an 18-13 win. Goromaru has now scored over 500 points for Japan, making him the nation’s top point scorer.

Some of the other games gave surprise results. Tonga beat Georgia, 23-9, in Tbilisi, but several Georgians were not available for various reasons. Scotland beat Argentina, 41-31, which was unexpected by many followers of rugby. Argentina narrowly beat Italy, 20-18, the following week.

The previous week, Italy defeated Samoa, 24-13, in Genoa but then Samoa made amends when the game against Canada was played in France and won 24-13.

To show the win over Georgia was no fluke, Tonga met USA in Gloucester, England. The islanders were easy winners, 40-18, and the Ireland beat Georgia, 47-7 in Dublin. France also had an easy home win against Fiji, 40-15.

These results look as though the top division European nations still have a long way to go to bridge the gap with the top 10 tier one countries. Fiji, then showed they were not a spent force when they then again played in France, this time against the USA, holding off an American come-back but held on to win, 20-14.

for the final game in the tier two cross-region matches, Japan travelled to take on the full strength of Georgia. In front of a massive crowd, the Lelo forwards flexed their muscles and their stronger forwards overwhelmed the smaller Japanese pack. Scoring five tries to three, Georgia beat Japan, 35-24. Only a late flurry by Japan made the score respectable. This also snapped Japan’s 11-match winning streak.

Also, the European lower divisions have started the 2014-16 competitions and most have played a two or three games, a quarter of the games scheduled for the two year series. None of the top division games have been played as these nations are involved in the expanded cross -region games.

In the 1B European division, Moldova remains undefeated, having beaten Poland, 48-25, who up to this match, was also undefeated.

The Czech Republic is the only team to win both its games in the 2A division. The Czechs were relegated from 1B for this series. Two nations have won both games in the 2B division. Lithuania, newly relegated from 2A, and Latvia head this division. Last week, Latvia beat the newly promoted from 2C team, Cyprus, 39-20. This stopped the winning streak of Cyprus who had won the previous 23 games on the trot.

It is surely a world record, even surpassing the All Blacks.

It is topsy-turvy in the 2C group. Slovenia is undefeated as is Luxembourg while Serbia has yet to win a game. What is unusual is that Luxembourg is the promoted team from 2D and Serbia was the demoted nation from 2B.

One of the reasons for Serbia’s demise is that rugby league is growing in Serbia and rugby union could be losing players to it. In the 1950s and 60s, it was league that was played in Serbia, not rugby.

They switched to rugby in order to play in European championships but the Serbs have long memories and there is a yearning to return to the old days.

Bosnia has won both its games in the 2D division with the other having a win and a loss except newly promoted, Turkey, who have yet to register a win. The division 3 group is mainly made up of new rugby nations.

Estonia, Belarus and Montenegro are the new countries, Greece was relegated from the 2d and Slovakia remains in the division. Azerbaijan has withdrawn from competition on financial grounds. In the only game played so far, Estonia coasted to a 69-12 win over Belarus.

The lower divisions will resume in February and will play their divisional matches until June. The top division of Georgia, Romania, Russia, Spain, Portugal and Germany will start their matches also in February but the fixtures dates will be the same as the Six Nations and so will finish on 21st March, the same date as the Six Nations.

Finally, in case anyone has missed it, the International Rugby Board (IRB) is no more. The marketers have arrived and with a new logo will be known as World Rugby.