I think the gap between NH & SH has pretty much eroded. England, France and Ireland could all make semi finals. The draw seems very much like England and Aus are semi finalists leaving NZ, SA, Ireland and France to fight it out. Predicting anything with France will be tough but a Shaun Edwards defence with French attacking flair is a different prospect than the past. Ireland are 3 from 5 against NZ can they break their physchological barrier. I think a 2-2 split is more likely especially given it could easily be a SA vs NZ quarter final

Who should replace Italy though? Georgia soundly beaten by Italy 3 years ago?

Jacko just to be clear you are saying the fact that an imbalance from 25 years ago mean NZ & England shouldn’t play each other now?

I’m amazed that you bring the wales NZ match into it. That game against a depleted wales due to the match being outside the window was nothing but a money grab from a near bankrupt WRU. If you were a fan who paid to watch that match I don’t think many are lining up to pay for a similar fixture in the future. For the good of the game the less of these money grabbing games the and the more competitive fixtures the better.

It’s funny you are so pro wales when I showed that their ratio in the professional era (11-5) is so much worse than Englands (13-10). But hey don’t let facts get in the way of your prejudice.

Jacko your whole fundamental point is that NH sides don’t tour NZ often enough. The stats point out that since professionalism there were two extra games played in England compared to NZ. Once the next tour is complete it will be even.

In other posts above you say the SH teams should play in the NH to spite teams like england who don’t tour NZ enough. Your whole point has been shown to be incorrect. In a four year cycle one summer is a lions summer where england often play Argentina and one is RWC where July & November series don’t happen. Englands last three tours NZ, Aus, SA. Now Aus pencilled in 2022. If 2024 happens in NZ it is pretty much as fair as you can get. So your statement that NH don’t tour or put effort into SH is just completely bogus.

Additionally the NH tour with the lions. The lions could be viewed as a real pain to the component nations. It disrupts national team cohesion, adds an extra 5 games to those players seasons & barely makes any money for the NH.

Your proposal for SH to not tour NH is a complete zero sum game. It is pretty clear that most NH teams tour roughly evenly with SH teams.

For the good of the game England should play NZ more often. Agree on a global calendar

Do you not see you are saying england don’t play NZ in NZ enough yet if you include lions tours England & lions have played more matches in NZ since professionalism. The discrepancy is two games if you exclude the lions hardly the two to one stats you quoted.

Since 2014 NZ have chosen to play the likes of scotland, wales & italy by agreeing to out of window tests that inflate the amount of tests played in the NH hence the averages skew to the NH.

There is nothing stopping NZ choosing to host a four test series in June. The fact is NZ rugby is not making as much money as NH because the economy isn’t as big. I don’t see why if the number of tests played from NH to SH is the same or in this case balanced towards NZ why England should pay NZ more than England would receive when they tour NZ.

Well lets discuss the professional era because I’m sure we can agree your concerns about england playing new zealand aren’t based off the 1980’s & early 90s. So since 1997 I make it 13 games in england & 10 in NZ with one of the games being in 1999 RWC in england. I don’t see such a wide discrepancy especially if you factor in the lions will have played 6 tests in NZ in that timeframe as well.
I don’t understand the prejudice shown to England. Where is the complaint that scotland haven’t toured since 2000. Games played 9-4 in scotland in same timeframe. Wales 11-5 in Wales.
The fact is NZ have had France & Ireland tour more regularly than England, Wales & Scotland.
Also just look at the maths the longest a tour will go in SH is three test matches whereas nearly every year there are four tests in November. Of course that is going to lead to a disparity in where the matches are played.
I don’t think the facts show that england disadvantage NZ or treat them poorly. Of course they are due a tour but NZ have played in england once since 2014.

Jacko
If you look at english tours you’ll see that england have toured with pretty much the same regurlarity of SA up until 2018. Then 2019 RWC year no summer tours. Then we have had covid. . You complain England don’t play in NZ why dont NZ play in england? England have agreed to tour Aus in 2022 (a team who have played every year in England) & probably because they are concerned when NZ will open up etc.
NZ didn’t play england in england for four years after 2014 despite england touring in 2014. If this was a business do you keep your regular customer happy or the cutomer who comes once in a while?

People seem to forget that in RWC2019 once marler came on for vunipola the scrum battle completely switched. The french ref pinged one penalty the wrong way because he’s french. Was expectig similar but apparently you don’t play your best 2 days out of covid iso.

Micko I’m in Queensland so everyone does love NRL 🙂 In the youth group I run those who play sport play rugby league or basketball. I thought my comment was long enough without delving into AFL which coincidentally I enjoy watching much more than NRL.

If I may offer up my views as a pom. I grew up watching soccer, rugby union, tennis, cricket & athletics probably in about that order. I remember watching the 2003 world cup and seeing Johnny wilkinson hit the winning drop goal in extra time. Every February I remember watching the 6 nations. What made rugby different from soccer was the size and physicality of the game. The fact you don’t kick the ball you pass it. This is what made rugby unique. The other thing that made rugby unique was that I never watched club rugby it was just internationals. World cups and 6 nations. I didn’t even know there was premiership until I was a teenager.

Then about 4 years ago I moved to Australia and everyone loved rugby league or should I say NRL. I was confused why players would get tackled and the tackler would lie on top the ball carrier for as long as possible and the tackled player would hump the ground. The physicality was there but then the game was slowed down. They then get up and roll the ball through their legs (but then i found out that’s a penalty even though every time that seemed to be what they were doing). Then after three or four one out runners there would be 1 back move or a kick. I still don’t understand what the attraction of NRL is.

The reason I prefer union over league is that it isn’t so structured as league. League you know one team will have the ball for 5 phases then either score or kick it. Union brings some much more facets to the game: scrum, lineout, breakdown, running attack, kick contest, collision success, counter attack.

There are so many tactics your team can employ whereas league I couldn’t say what the tactics are: run hard try and offload to gain extra ten metres and kick on the last tackle. What teams play with different tactics in league? Whereas a rugby union team can try and play to so many different tactics. Don’t have good backs we will try and win it in set piece and kick chase. Set piece not working keep the ball in play.

Agree that a lot of excuses were tabled for South Africa but not so many for England. For context England won short their top two hookers, and two starting looseheads (one came on after 1 training session), their captain & vice captain and countless wings. That’s how you start the game. You then lose your big ball carrying centre against SA after 7 minutes.

All of this against a backdrop of renewing the team. Since RWC2019 the true order by win percentage:
England
France
Ireland
NZ
SA

I think you can geniunely make the case that England, france & ireland are at various stages of evolving their team, NZ in need of some sort of freshen up & what about SA. What areas have they progressed since RWC? I would say the problem areas that were there are still there. They have tried to develop the attack through the year but most of the tries i’ve seen are off kick chase or when teams are down to 14. I don’t think you will win the 23 world cup with that strategy.

Pretty big call early doors – definitely possible but there are a lot of people who after 5 tests look good but they may not realise the perceived potential. Certain tactics may find him out, loss of form, loss of desire.

Woki the breakout player of the year with Freddie Steward breakout player of the autumn in my books.

For balance last 6 nations they lost to france by 2 points only but once again france played with 14 from minute 59 and outscored wales 12-3 although the game ended 14 vs 13 after two welsh went to the bin for repeated infringements.

Wales wins over major nations since RWC 2019
Ireland player red carded in 14th minute win by 5 points
Scotland player red carded in 54th minute win by 1 point
England 14 points from two dodgy tries (knock on & ref not allowing time for defence to set)
Australia player red carded in 15th minute win by 1 point

I’ve never been convinced Wales were ever that good since RWC 2019. Definitely lucky: 6 red cards in the past 12 matches not aware of any team to have had such luck but even then they are not winning by more than 5 points.

England learnt to win without tuilagi, with a second string front row whilst blooding a number of youngsters. Defence on the whole was good I think one try conceded over the autumn.

Still to work on discipline, fourth choice hooker lineout throwing & consolidating line breaks.

If it goes back you have played within the laws of the game, you have got into a position where you contest possession and deliberately knocked it back to your side of the field. If it goes forward and you’ve gone with one hand then you have deliberately knocked on.

But isn’t that what rugby is if a pass is marginally forward its the difference seven points and a scrum to opposing team. You can tackle someone on their shoulder create a huge whiplash on their neck and not be penalised but get it marginally wrong and its red. Clean out too far and your attack is stopped.

We complain that the rulebook is too complicated this is about as simple as it comes knock the ball forward when you are in possession scrum, knock the ball forward going one handed penalty and maybe yellow if line break is on. Knock the ball back play on.

I agree there is no need to change the law, if you as a defender get to a position to bat the ball back why should you be punished ?

It’s still an incredibly high risk play probably about 1 in 100 attempts are actually going to come backwards and given the overlap Australia had the welsh player should have seen yellow if it had gone forward.

There are many other situations in games eg competing for high ball, lineout etc where you should be able bat the ball down backwards.

They should just ban the caterpillar ruck. That’s the real gripe, at times the ball is trapped in between bodies so some times the scrum half needs to go digging with hands to clear it out but then could definitely say if the ball is not trapped and you touch it ball is out.

Both England & Australia were very poorly disciplined on the weekend and have been for some some time. What can they do to fix that?

Or how like england make that indiscipline not matter?

If you can’t see the difference between DR speaking out for three minutes at the end of the tour when the next match for Australia is in what 6 months as opposed to an hour long edited video put up by a burner twitter account in between week 1 and week 2 of a 3 test series then I don’t see how anyone can be reasoned with.

You can’t seriously suggest that losing your two first choice looseheads and two first choice hookers would not impact any team.
Sure having four players out isn’t a biggie but when four of the six front rowers are out surely you can see the bigger impact at set piece

I think it suits England going in as underdog in this game. Key will be scrum with two props out or having 1 day training and 2 hookers down will be interesting to see how that goes.

Please tell me you aren’t complaining about the red card to damien mackenzie? I’ve got news for you Nic berry didn’t make damien mackenzie run into tate mcdermotts head with his shoulder. There is a difference between getting the 50/50 calls and being a biased ref. I see lot of people comment saying nic berry is a bad ref but for me the games i’ve seen him ref there haven’t been any howlers. He may have made mistakes but please tell me MH01 when you are refereeing a game and we will see how many howlers you make or miss.