Rugby Rankings and New Zealand Dominance

Looking at the current World Rugby rankings for men, New Zealand's All Blacks are staggeringly dominant over their rivals in the top 10. Here's how it looks:

1. All Blacks 

2. South Africa 43-110 (wins over the All Blacks - total tests played to date)

3. Ireland 5-39 

4. France 15-68

5. England 9-47

6. Scotland 0-33

7. Argentina 4-41

8. Australia 45-181

9. Fiji 0-11

10. Wales 3-38

This is an embarrassing statistic for everyone apart from New Zealand. What prompted this post? I recently saw some Northern Hemisphere pundits picking their five greatest players of all time, and not one picked a single All Black. Consider this, the Northern Hemisphere has won only one World Cup. The rest have been won by New Zealand, South Africa and Australia. 

Rugby Revived: Nations Championship

Rugby has been in the doldrums for years now, what with rigged games and lack of defence. But, watching over the weekend, the new Nations Championship format looks to be promising. This is where the top 12 teams in the world play one another for the overall title of world champion. The teams are divided into two pools, the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. Peculiarly, Japan has been placed in the Southern Hemisphere.

Results (North First, then South)

France 32 - 34 New Zealand

Italy 10 - 27 Japan

Ireland 33 - 31 Australia

Wales 39 - 24 Fiji

England 21 - 45 South Africa

Scotland 47 - 38 Argentina

The competition will take place over two years, culminating in a grand final where the top team from the North plays the top team from the South.

One problem with this format is it is likely to lead to the South dominating the North, because all Rugby World Cup winners, apart from just the one - England - are in the South.

World Rugby are trying to head off the challenge posed by rival promotions such as Rugby360. In Super Rugby they now have their Super Rugby Weekends where all the teams descend on one city and play over a weekend. This year it was held in Christchurch and proved very successful. It helped that Christchurch has a covered stadium.

Rugby has to look at covering its stadiums but at the same time not making them too large. Crowd sizes positioned close to the pitch and numbering about 25k is ideal. The NRL play open to the elements but they do keep their crowd sizes down and have fans able to see the action, which makes for a far better experience.

So, the Super Rugby weekends and this format of a Nations Championship does at least attempt to address the problems rugby is facing, and that is; a lack of fan engagement and high scoring but ultimately unsatisfying games. 

Rugby has to sort out their feed to Google and other search engines. Currently, it is hard to get updates. I'd rate their efforts as a whole a fail on this, a D- for sure. Soccer are always on top of things, by contrast.

The best link I've found is the BBC in England, check it out:https://www.bbc.com/sport/rugby-union 

There is also a second division, called the Nations Cup, and that includes the likes of Georgia, Romania, USA, Samoa etc., but no promotion/relegation as yet. This won't happen anytime soon, but if it does, Georgia are looking the most promising. Even now, Georgia could just about replace Italy.

Rugby: New Zealand v Wales

Rugby - On Saturday New Zealand's All Blacks secured a comfortable 52-26 victory over their old foes, Wales, but they looked fragile at times; they often lost possession when hard on attack and out wide the NZ defense looked exposed. Wales are weak at the moment and should not have been allowed 26 points. In a way, the score flattered the All Blacks as Wales looked better than the score suggests. 

I see a weakness with the current Wales team, their forwards lack mobility and good ball-handling skills. That's an area they need to work hard on.

My main complaint is with refereeing and in particular the video referee. Once again we saw the ridiculous situation where the All Blacks were penalised against, yet they went on to score a try anyway, which was converted, only to have all that effort cancelled and made to come back for a penalty in their favour. Make it make sense.

Then, another NZ try was awarded on field by the referee, correctly, but she was clearly intimidated into reversing her decision based on words said from the video referees. The referee had done a good job, and this interference ruins the game.

Rugby is falling in popularity these days, and this is because the referees do not allow the game to flow. And then, the video referees overrule and interfere.

I hope R360 rugby is successful and that they make changes. The current games are simply not good viewing.

What's Wrong With the All Blacks?

Rugby Union - New Zealand's All Blacks have lost to England at Twickenham, 19-33. This has got to sting as England are starting to rack up wins a little too often. 

What has gone wrong?

New Zealand seem to lack the ability to get themselves out of a slump during games. I put this down to three main factors:

1. Coaching - the team now plays two-dimensionally, they lack innovation. Gone are the 3D chess moves of Steve Hansen and Ian Foster, the current coaches' predecessors.

2. Captaincy - the current leadership on the field is lacking; they live only in the moment and make very poor strategic on-field decisions.

3. Skill - the players commit too many basic errors, such as not being able to secure the ball or retain possession, and they lack in areas of more advanced play, such as their body position when close to the line. 

During the latest effort against England, there was a long period of time when the All Blacks failed to score, letting England get a feeling they were in the game. Previous teams were always able to keep the scoreboard ticking along, effectively shutting down the hopes of their opposition.

The only positive is that it is good to find this out now, rather than close to a World Cup. The All Blacks have a lot of work to do.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/579002/grand-slammed-what-went-wrong-for-the-all-blacks-against-england

All Blacks Average Performance

I'm going to say it, the current New Zealand rugby union team, the All Blacks, are very average. Their latest performance against Australia in Perth, Western Australia, displayed both a lack of skill, and tactical nous.

The skill deficit meant they could not make simple kicks, often missing a kick to touch off their own penalty; and then missing routine kicks for goal. They beat Australia 28-14 but it should have been a victory by a lot more. 

Toward the end of the game they passed up easy kicks for goal and one has to wonder whether they did this as they weren't confident of making the kick, or whether they're just a bunch of amateurs.

The blame for this poor performance must lie with the coaching staff and the captain. It is simply not good enough. And what is it with Sky TV commentators? They refuse to criticise obviously poor play. If a kick to touch off a penalty was missed, they'd say nothing at all about it. It was a case with them of, oh well, play on. Err...no, that is a big error and needs to be pointed out. For those who don't know what I'm talking about: a kick directly to touch off a penalty means you get the ball back from where the ball went out. If you don't get that ball out, the other side runs it back at you, meaning losing possession and field position. Do this often, and it is a sackable offense, but the Sky commentators were silent. Is this some kind of corporate thing now? Sky TV are such twits. 

Springboks Crush All Blacks

The rugby team I dislike the most, South Africa's Springboks have smashed New Zealand's All Blacks, 43-10. It is the All Blacks worst ever defeat. What's worse is that NZ were playing at home. 

This All Blacks team appear very fragile. The Springboks are definitely beatable, but the All Blacks just fall apart at times. It's as if they overthink things.

A huge apology is due the previous All Blacks coach, Ian Foster. He took the AB's to a World Cup final despite knowing he'd lost the job to the incumbent today. That coach, Scott Robertson had a stellar record as a Super Rugby coach, but he's fallen well short at the very top. 

When losses like this occur, NZ starts bloodletting. This is going to be biblical.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/572980/rugby-championship-record-loss-for-all-blacks-as-springboks-retain-freedom-cup

All Blacks Become Political

Following the recent Rugby test between New Zealand and Italy, members of the All Blacks posed with a flag representing many Maori groups. Thing is, this flag is not official and groups with a political agenda often use it. 

Is it appropriate for a national team, representing all New Zealanders, to fly the flag of interest groups promoting a political agenda, while at the same time ignoring the actual flag of the country they represent? 

Personally, I think why not, so long as they're not being paid a penny by the NZ taxpayer. Well, turns out NZ Rugby gets a lot of money out of the taxpayers pocket, so how about we cut that funding off - completely. Make money the honest way, NZ Rugby, then try lecturing everyone about the politics you support.

New Zealand Rugby Weakening

New Zealand is going to have to get used to its all-conquering rugby team ceasing to be the powerhouse it once was. They've just gone down to South Africa 27-31 in a game they should have put to bed in the second half. Admittedly, they were playing away at Ellis Park, a stadium with a fearsome reputation, much like NZ's own Eden Park. 

Rugby is not as popular as it once was in NZ, but even then there is a lot of misinformation being peddled about NZ's rugby history. Before the Second World War, rugby was not NZ's most popular sport, that was tennis (and croquet), followed closely by golf. Evidence of this can be seen across the country when visiting old parks, they always have tennis courts and often also have a nine hole golf course handy as well. However, these days newly created recreation areas have skateboard and BMX areas, and a basketball half-court. 

Although, when talking large ball team sports, rugby did dominate, perhaps sitting in third place overall. Then, when servicemen returned from the war, they were keen to play a physical contact sport and they had their sons take up the game as well. Rugby took off, with ascendency being reached in the 1970's and 1980's, culminating in NZ winning the first Rugby World Cup in 1987. 

There is a parallel here with Uruguay winning the very first Soccer World Cup in 1930. Both NZ and Uruguay have small populations but very good football teams. However, over time Uruguay has been surpassed by other countries. They're still good, among the best in fact, but they haven't won a World Cup since 1950. NZ had better brace itself for a similar slide.

For NZ, part of the problem is player depth. The most popular large ball team sport in the country right now is basketball. And basketball is continuing to grow. I'm glad to say I saw this trend early and played the game from the age of eight. Basketball has huge advantages over rugby; there are fewer players on a team, you can play 3x3 and 5x5 these days, the equipment is cheap, and every player on the court has a chance of scoring. 

Of course, NZ has other sports that attract the young; anything to do with boats and anything with a motor in it is always attractive. That's why NZ has such a strong record in all forms of motorsport, sailing, rowing and kayaking. I used to kayak in my summers, and so once again I'm proud to say I saw the trend early.

Where did rugby go wrong? The problem with the game lies in both the way the game is managed globally and how the game is played within NZ. Internationally, the rules are always changing. Basically, you need a PhD in laws and data analytics to keep up with the changes. NZ has done fairly well with this, but the stress always remains and players are put off. Then, locally the way the game is played has changed. Teams these days prefer to seek collision and run over the top of opponents, instead of seeking to avoid collision and evade tackles. The style favoured these days has mothers preventing their children from taking up a sport that may injure. Also, the style adopted is itself less efficient and means teams often do not score because they're looking to go through an obstacle, instead of going around it. 

Sports that are resurgent in NZ include athletics, with a Kiwi man now being the reigning Olympic gold medallist in the high jump. NZ produces quality competitors in field events and is once again producing good track athletes. I think young Kiwis are attracted to athletics due to its instant reward for effort and ability. If you win, you win, and referees have little to do with the outcome. 

This is the trend as I see it; basketball teams and athletics, along with boats and motorsports. 

The Dreaded TMO

Naturally, all of New Zealand are talking about the Television Match Official, or TMO. The TMO played a critical role in the Rugby World Cup 2023, especially in the final.

Everyone is calling for consistency in decision making. I agree, but don't feel inconsistency is what determined the outcome of the match. 

I do believe the TMO played a critical part and did influence the outcome, but I'm not seeing people understand how this was done. The TMO slowed the game down, allowing pauses to occur, and this allowed the weaker team, the team noticeably running out of gas to have timeouts, regroup, and set their defense again. This helped South Africa as the game wore on as they were the team that needed the rests.

Think politically too; World Rugby want to expand the game. If New Zealand are always winning, people other than rugby purists are not going to be so interested. Every year, new laws come along to try and neuter the power of the NZ game, and now we have match officials actively interfering.

This is statement of fact, not sour grapes. NZ had their chance to win and blew it. Credit goes to South Africa, but the rugby governing body have got to sort this nonsense out, they're turning rugby into something akin to American Football, with constant stoppages.

Rugby World Cup 2023 - Final

South Africa 12 - 11 New Zealand

New Zealand scored the only try, but South Africa won their fourth Rugby World Cup and became the greatest World Cup winning rugby team of all time.

New Zealand had their chances. They failed to convert the one try and had a 50 metre penalty kick that went wide. Either of these kicks would have put NZ in front.

South Africa never really looked like scoring a try, but they defended resolutely, and had physical dominance for much of the game, especially in the first half. They had NZ playing their game.

NZ did not play well in key areas. Its ball handling was flawed with too many players taking their eye off the ball. And NZ did not ring the changes when adjustments were needed. It looked to me as if the team had decided to make replacements at appointed times and they just stuck to that. When replacements were made, they had an instant impact, but not enough minutes to turn that into points. 

Here's my way of looking at it: when the NZ captain, Sam Cane was off for good, they needed to inject Sam Whitelock at that point, to level the ship and provide experience and leadership. Then, at halftime, change the first five eighth (fly half), and early in the second half, off comes the halfback Aaron Smith and the winger Will Jordan.

My main gripe, however, is with the refereeing and the direction the game is taking. The referees have too much influence on the game. Both teams received two yellow cards. The NZ captain had his yellow upgraded to red and so NZ was down to 14 men for the rest of the match. But, the South Africa captain also received a yellow for head to head contact, and yet this did not get upgraded. Inconsistency such as this has got to be sorted. Did this matter in the end? Probably not, as South Africa received its next yellow soon after the South Africa captain came back on, so for the remainder of the match they were down to 14 men as well, it became a 14 man contest.

Once the game is reduced to 14 men, teams must adjust and this influences how teams play, which lessens the spectator experience. If teams had stayed at 15 men apiece, the score may have ended the same, but the fans would see a proper game, not one that resembles a shambles. 

For New Zealand, the plus is that this team even made the final. Leading in to this tournament, many considered them to be the worst All Blacks team in a long time. So, they achieved above expectations, but looking ahead, the new coach Scott Robertson has to introduce his brand of rugby and get things back on track.

Rugby Explained to a German

With the Rugby World Cup final looming, a German visiting Ireland wrote to the local newspaper looking for an explanation of the rules. Here's the response:

Ireland vs All Blacks: Rugby World Cup 2023

I heard former All Blacks coach, Steve Hansen talking about how the All Blacks can beat Ireland. He mentioned that the All Blacks are the last team to have beaten them. That was back in July 2022, and since then Ireland have been on a winning streak. There have been close games, with Australia and Samoa having had a chance to topple them, so their winning cannot be assumed.

What Hansen was saying is the All Blacks have to avoid going wide too early. They have to keep it in the middle, and get Ireland's big forwards to bunch up defending. Then, when the time is right, go wide and rely on the skill and speed of the Kiwis. They must contest everything, including lineouts. Also of interest was his call to limit Sexton. By cutting down his options with Ireland, their whole game is affected.

Will the New Zealand coach, Ian Foster heed this advice? I don't have him as a thinker. He's a copycat, a classic assistant. He just goes along and hopes what worked in the past will work this time round.

What do you think?

Lawrence Dallaglio Deluded

Apparently, the former captain of England's rugby team, Lawrence Dallaglio thinks if England win the 2019 World Cup final against South Africa, that it would be the greatest rugby World Cup victory of all time.

Err, newsflash, the greatest final has already been played and that was in 1995, the game was between South Africa and New Zealand's All Blacks, a game that was won by the Springboks in overtime. It's great because of the political and social significance of the result. It united a fractured country. Nelson Mandela famously wore the Springbok uniform when greeting the players.

Then in second place we have the greatest feat, New Zealand going back-to-back in 2011 and 2015. Truly remarkable. That's similar to Brazil in soccer going back-to-back, 1958 and 1962.

If England do win in 2019 it can at least be said to be a proper win. England previously won a World Cup in 2003, a soft world cup that as they didn't defeat New Zealand on the way through.

However, I don't think England are going to win in 2019. I predict that will be South Africa, for the simple reason they have more to play for. They desperately want to equal NZ's three victories, and put themselves in place to score a back-to-back and in so doing go to the top with four titles. Watching the semi-finals, England will have to get back up again after playing out of their skins, while South Africa played in a very measured and calculating way against Wales. They'll have the reserves of endurance needed to win.

RWC 2019 Semi-Final England v New Zealand

England beat New Zealand 19-7. The All Blacks were thoroughly outplayed, the score flattered them. England were completely dominant, they read the NZ game well and effectively shut down the All Blacks possession. It's hard to think of a single thing NZ did well, apart from restricting the rate of England scoring, getting lucky at times with referee decisions that went their way.

For England, it's on to the final and facing either Wales or South Africa. My pick is for South Africa to take Wales out and go on to win the tournament.

NZ will need to re-think their approach, clearly the better nations have caught up and now have them figured out.

RWC 2019 Quarter-Finals

Rugby World Cup quarter-finals have gone the way people would expect; England easily dispatched Australia 40-16 (I got this one wrong), then in a thoroughly dominant display New Zealand's All Blacks crushed Ireland 46-14. The All Blacks were simply superb and if they maintain that form, they'll be marching into the final.

Rugby World Cup 2019 Heating Up

The 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan is proving to be a close tournament. We've had two major upsets, the first was Uruguay beating Fiji, but then Japan beat Ireland the world's second ranked team. Now we have Wales beating Australia. Wales have never won a world cup while Australia has won two. If this continues, New Zealand's All Blacks will cruise to their third straight world cup, as the strong opponents will be weakened, eliminated or find themselves on the wrong side of the draw.

Rugby World Cup 2019

The Rugby World Cup is under way, exciting times indeed. I'm a supporter of the All Blacks, a team I never want to see lose. Just as well, as in fact, they rarely lose. Yay.

But even I can see this world cup is heavily stacked in favour of the All Blacks, and South Africa. That comes down to the structure of the tournament and what amounts to a very weak pool New Zealand and South Africa find themselves in. Not only that, but the pool's first and second place was essentially decided by the first game between the All Blacks and South Africa. 

Both teams are guaranteed a place in the quarter-finals where they're almost certain to advance as they'll play teams they'll probably beat. New Zealand will likely be playing Scotland, a team it has never lost to. South Africa will likely play Ireland, a team you'd fancy South Africa beating.

Across the competition you can find other situations that are less than ideal. For instance England are slated to win their pool, but then they'll either play Australia or Wales in their quarter-final. England could easily be out at that stage, not even making the semi-final.

What's the problem? As I see it the problem is with the way the game is structured globally, not just with the structure of this tournament which follows a familiar and popular pattern; pools, then knock-outs leading to a final.

Structurally, Rugby is not like Soccer (Association Football), the lesser teams are locked out and cannot develop. Unlike Soccer, where any team can beat any other team on the day, Rugby is an elitist game and the powerful countries entrench their position at the top. 

Solving this problem requires grassroots reform. That means international competitions with promotion and relegation. In this scenario Russia, Georgia and Japan would be able to qualify for the Six Nations; or Tonga, Fiji and Samoa qualifying to play in the southern hemisphere's Rugby Championship. Then when these teams get to the world cup, have a structure where losing a game may end up losing a life, not immediate elimination. This also allows pathways for lesser teams to advance. Whatever, the obvious bias has to be addressed as Rugby will stall in terms of global following if not corrected.

All Blacks for Rugby World Cup 2019

The Otago Daily Times gives this useful assessment of who is out and who is in: https://www.odt.co.nz/sport/rugby/all-blacks/no-squire-franks-laumape-miss-world-cup-selection

IAAF Diamond League Changes

The Diamond League are scrapping long distance athletic track events:

https://www.sport24.co.za/OtherSport/Athletics/kenya-slams-iaaf-scrapping-of-5-000m-in-diamond-league-20190314

Kenya and other east African countries are rightfully outraged. They've dominated these events for most of the last 50 years.

Lesson: Europe make it up as they're going along and if they find they cannot win, they ban it. Everyone should take note, especially New Zealand's All Blacks who are dominant in Rugby Union and almost never lose. Get that good and the Europeans ban you. Oh yes, the World League at the stroke of a pen wrote out smaller Pacific Island nations, they're seen as feeders only. It's the old colonial mindset. And if you need a further athletics example, Athletics started talking about scrapping the shot put from the Olympics at the same time non-Europeans started becoming dominant.

World Rugby League

The proposed new annual championship in rugby union appears to shaft the small Pacific nations and eastern Europe. It is no surprise it includes Japan and the USA, they're put in for the money, even though their playing strength is not good enough.

The main problem with the format of 12 nations in two groups of six, is that there is no pathway for other countries to emerge. In other words there is no promotion/relegation. Not even relegation play-offs. To illustrate look at the current world rankings:

1.   New Zealand
2.   Ireland
3.   Wales
4.   England
5.   South Africa
6.   Australia
7.   Scotland
8.   France
9.   Fiji
10. Argentina
11. Japan
12. Georgia

But the new championship would play the existing Six Nations against the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship with Japan and USA added to the latter. That means Italy as part of the Six Nations get in permanently from their position of 15, over the top of Georgia (#12).

Meanwhile Fiji (#9) are topped by Japan (#11) and USA (#13). Basically, it's absurd and if implemented, rugby administrators will be made to look like laughing stocks.

Here's an answer: why not have a 10 team league made up of a 5 team northern hemisphere and 5 team southern hemisphere conferences, like this:

Northern

Ireland
Wales
England
Scotland
France

Southern

New Zealand
Australia
South Africa
Fiji
Argentina

Within each conference they play each other once (4 games each), then the top two in each conference play semi-finals against the top two from the other conference, followed by the final. For the finalists that's 6 games. If things go the way of rankings it should end like this:-

Ireland v Australia
Wales v New Zealand

Final: Ireland v New Zealand

What about the bottom 6 teams?  They cross over and play for relegation. If the competition went according to rankings it would mean the bottom team from one conference playing the 3rd place from the other conference, and so on, so (an example):

England v Argentina
Scotland v Fiji
France v South Africa

The two worst teams from each hemisphere (this is not entirely fair but keeps the league balanced) in terms of tries scored and points differential then play a relegation game against the top team from the lower tier in their hemisphere. According to rankings like this:

France play a relegation game against Japan or Georgia
Argentina play a relegation game against Tonga, Samoa or Uruguay.

The team playing off for relegation would have played 6 games, the others 5 in total since the competition season started.

Naturally the lower tier could also have its own format for deciding who challenges.