1. Ireland creak into Joe Schmidt era
The first 40 minutes were tough going, but rather than just barely eeking out a victory and claiming ‘a win is a win‘ Ireland built on a solid first half and powered their advantage home in the final quarter.
In a way, this feels more heartening than had the green shirts hared out of the traps and ran up 30 points in the first half. Instead, Ireland happily conceded possession and focused their efforts on the breakdown.
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40 – 9: five tries, zero conceded, two new caps and a point proven by Paddy Jackson – not a bad start when you step back and look at it.
2. Australia rediscover confidence
At times during the Wallabies’ defeat to England in Twickenham last week, they looked completely accepting of defeat. They had held a lead for a considerable time, but showed no nous of how to hold onto the advantage or add to it. They were being bullied into rushing simple feats until they gave up the game.
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Against Italy, the same thing began to happen. It was brief on this occasion though and Ewen McKenzie’s side knuckled back down to basics, asking front rows to take them over the gainline before Quade Cooper exploit the resulting holes.
Meeting Italy head on and winning is the confidence boost they needed. Australia know how to win again.
3. All Blacks still class and clinical
Dan Carter is coming in for criticism in one backward corner of New Zealand today, yet there New Zealand are with a win in Paris and a 100% record in 2013.
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If anybody is going to spook the All Blacks, it’s France. Les Bleus managed to drag the tourists into a dogfight for over half of Saturday night’s prime time viewing until two brilliant moments from Charles Piutau blew the game open.
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It’s typical of them, just when a team thinks they have a measure of the world champions, they strike. Now they go to Twickenham looking to avenge last year’s defeat – let’s hope they’re sated by the time they come to Dublin.
4. Winter discontent remains for Wales
“We are used to winning here in Wales. We really thought we could come out here and create a upset.” — Mike Phillips with Wales Online.
They’ve lost to worse teams than South Africa, of course, but it’s impossible to avoid a sense of Deja Vu about Wales. Eight months ago they again proved themselves to be the best team in Europe, in the summer they powered the Lions in Australia. However, in their national jersey they appear to have a mental block when it comes to southern hemisphere opposition.
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Every November, the free-flowing confidence of spring is hard to come by around Cardiff and that was borne out by a three tries to nil loss. Even Phillips’ statement above shows how thin the expectation is. Were it not for Wales’ 14 straight losses to the ‘Boks you might say the Six Nations champions shouldn’t consider it an upset to beat South Africa on home turf.
5. It ain’t pretty, but England are mighty effective
The Welsh masterclass that brought the curtain down on the Six Nations is England’s only defeat in the last 10 games.
Next up, they meet the side who started the run and gave them the confidence to challenge for the Six Nations title way ahead of schedule. New Zealand.
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Two years of the Rugby Championship has knocked some of the edge or mystique off Argentina and this English back-line remains less than impressive, relying on a relatively one-dimensional gameplan steered by Owen Farrell. However, as long as you have a dominant pack and mechanical line-out, one dimension is often enough in this game.
