With the Springboks currently in possession of the World Cup and just crowned winners of the Rugby Championship, there is no doubt that Rassie Erasmus’s side are the best team in the world.
The good news for Ireland is that with four wins out of their last five meetings against the Boks, the men in green are not far behind.
After an excellent Rugby Championship and the arrival of the southern nations for their annual November battles only weeks away, predicting the winners across the coming series has rarely been so difficult. As it stands, and as it was before the World Cup last year, all of the world’s top eight teams are capable of beating each other on any given day. Which is a brilliant scenario for international rugby.
While Argentina under Felipe Contepomi are the most improved team on the international scene, even the most ardent of Puma fans would admit that the 79th-minute missed penalty by Manie Libbok cost South Africa the first Test. That missed shot, which by international standards was very kickable, did inspire some creative humour at the expense of the South Africans.
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My favourite was a cartoon of a man with his hands tied behind his back facing a firing squad. His tormentor asked: “Any last requests?”
“Yes,” replied the victim, “Let Manie Libbok take the shot.”
It is only a game and, well, we do have to laugh.
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The bravery, resilience and flare of Los Pumas is even more exceptional when we consider that Argentina does not have a single professional domestic team. Imagine Ireland competing internationally with only the AIL as a domestic competition and still being able to defeat South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and France in the last three months.
Contepomi has declared to the rest of the rugby world that the Pumas are once again a force on the global stage.
From an Irish perspective, a problem arose last weekend at the Aviva where the Dragons exposed the huge vulnerabilities in the current Leinster set-play defensive system. Clips of teams finding huge space against Leinster’s set-play defence have been doing the rounds on the internet for weeks. While Leinster’s attack is scoring enough points to defeat their weaker opponents, what the current failure of their defensive system means for the club later in the season and for Ireland in November is of deep concern.
Without huge improvements, quality teams such as La Rochelle, who Leinster face in the Champions Cup, will score tries at will against them from scrums and lineouts. If Ireland adopt the same defensive system in their November internationals, New Zealand and Argentina will carve that failing rushing defensive system apart.
Great rushing defensive teams, like South Africa, deny their opponents time and space close to the set play and offer the attacking team the vacant area of fool’s gold outside their outside centre. The Boks then snap shut the jaws of their trap with outrageous speed and aggression.
Leinster are currently failing to achieve any of this. Ireland must not follow the same path.
While the South African rushing defensive system is of the highest standard, what it does not want is for the attacking team to take up the challenge and to play direct attacking rugby that confronts their rushing defenders with hard running attackers. When teams do this – and win the breakdown contest – they earn the right to attempt to go around this great South African team.
Ireland have achieved success against South Africa mainly because they have found a way, however difficult, to remain patient until they have won the collisions. They then grab the rare opportunities that follow. The difficulty of executing this attacking plan against a sensationally aggressive Springboks team cannot be overstated.
In November, Wales, Scotland and England face the Springboks. Only then will we see if they are good enough to adopt Ireland’s winning formula.
Despite the bragging from the South Africans – and the hand-wringing from the Kiwis – both of their recent Tests were sensationally entertaining matches and the New Zealanders were desperately unlucky not to grab the chocolates in the first match.
When New Zealand arrive in Dublin, no one should be fooled into believing that this Kiwi unit is in as much trouble as their home media is suggesting. There is no denying that the men in black are in a period of reorganisation. But apart from the second Springboks Test, they were within centimetres of winning all their Rugby Championship matches.
New Zealand under coach Scott Robertson are a team on the up and will pose their usual threat. The same cannot be said for Joe Schmidt’s Wallabies. Schmidt dragged two passable halves of rugby out of his wobbling Wallabies from the four halves played against New Zealand. Joe’s real problem is that the other two halves were complete rubbish.
In a sadly ironic display of the great decline in Australian standards, this November comes 40 years after the great Wallaby Grand Slam-winning team of 1984. In homage, the tour will replicate that legendary team’s schedule with matches against England, Scotland, Wales and culminating against Ireland.
While Wales appears vulnerable, any other success for the men in gold is impossible to predict. The Wallabies tour will depend on whether Schmidt can convince Rugby Australia to allow him to select players not based in Australia and then in turn, to convince those players to gain the approval of their clubs to allow them to play.
If Schmidt fails on either front then the unthinkable may occur. Fiji could be considered a more formidable opponent for Ireland than Australia. If so, the Irish sectors will have to consider resting their starters and playing their extended squad against the once invincible gold jerseys.
A true reflection of the melancholic decline in Australia and the joyous rise of rugby in Ireland over the past two decades.
