Peter Bills: Southern Hemisphere teams on top

(GETTY IMAGES)

The strictly limited ability of most of the Northern Hemisphere rugby countries was laid bare by the Southern Hemisphere sides at the weekend.

Why, even the hapless, hopeless Springboks, flogged from pillar to post in the Tri-Nations this year, were able to fly into Dublin from Cape Town as late as Thursday mid-day, play the Test on the Saturday with a patched up side and still beat Ireland. Was this taking the proverbial or what? That alone told us much about the standard of opposition in the northern hemisphere at this time.

You don’t even have to prepare properly to beat them.

England huffed and puffed in their traditionally laborious way to keep within hailing distance of the All Blacks at Twickenham. But no more. They lost by 10 points against an All Blacks team that never truly fired and played the last 10 minutes with 14 men. What else do you need to say?

New Zealand were but a mere shadow of the side that had swept aside all comers in the Tri-Nations. Why? Fatigue, probably. These guys have been hard at it since January and desperately need a rest. Yet they were still miles better than England, especially at the simple basics.

England manager Martin Johnson and other former red rose devotees such as Lawrence Dallaglio called this a much improved performance and saw signs of real, tangible progress.

Yeah? England were as hopeless at taking the scoring opportunities they created as before. Nothing has changed in the English game in the last six years of complete failure by the national team. They can carve out try scoring chances but they lack the skills, precision and vision under pressure, to take them. They don’t have the wit or invention to break a structured defence.

In Cardiff, Australia might have been out-scrummed – nothing unusual there –but they out-scored Wales by three tries to one. And according to one Australian writer, Kurtley Beale’s play was in the class of that iconic Frenchman, Serge Blanco. No higher praise is possible than that.

Of course, the game Australia is currently playing is more akin to rugby league with just an apology for a scrum. But they know they can withstand that weakness by their attacking creativity all over the field and levels of finishing that remain merely a dream for the northern hemisphere teams.

Australia can’t hold up a scrum for love nor money. Yet they can score tries. Even off back foot ball. The home countries can't do that even when they ride in the box seats of possession.

So some chickens came home to roost on the rugby fields of Dublin, Cardiff and Twickenham on Saturday as all three southern hemisphere countries achieved largely comfortable wins over their rivals. Even at the end of what has been a long, enervating year for Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, all three nations were still much too good for the best the northern hemisphere could manage.

This might be the cause of huge celebrations from Christchurch to Cape Town, Brisbane to Bloemfontein. But I can tell you this. If this trend continues for another 12 months, the World Cup in New Zealand next year is going to become a boring, predictable procession with only Australia and South Africa potentially able to deny the All Blacks their Holy Grail of the world crown.

That would be alarming for the state of the game and its future. But on Saturday, reality caught up with the northern hemisphere big time. People in this part of the world have been burying their heads in the sand for too long. Their rugby was the best and they had the best players, they said – well, they had to be. After all, they were paying them fortunes so of course they were world class. Weren’t they...?

On this evidence (and plenty more for those prepared to cast aside blinkers and analyse objectively) rugby people in the northern hemisphere have had their heads up their backsides for too long. Problem is, the light ain’t too good in those nether regions so you tend not to be able to see very much.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped such people shouting from the rooftops about the so-called candyfloss rugby of the southern hemisphere. They never take the trouble to go down there and look at it – Gloucester, Munster, Leicester, Leinster and Cardiff is the epicentre of world rugby in their minds. Nowhere else matters.

Thus, Victor Matfield’s South Africans were able to negotiate what should have been a potentially difficult examination against Ireland in Dublin with some aplomb. Only in the dying minutes, when Springbok coach Peter de Villiers again made some completely wrong substitutions that let Ireland back into the game, did the home side begin to make a match of it. Prior to that, for an hour or more, this makeshift South African side was under no serious threat from the home team.

De Villiers’ record on substitutes is decidedly dodgy; he almost let slip the Springboks’ 1 st Test victory against the Lions in 2009 in Durban, and had to rush his captain back on in the dying moments to steady the wobbling ship. He was at it again on Saturday night; key architects of the Springboks’ supremacy such as Morne Steyn, Jean de Villiers, Jannie du Plessis and Bakkies Botha were all removed prematurely and Ireland so nearly made him pay for it.

But the Irish revival from 9-23 to 21-23 in the course of just five minutes fooled no-one.

Nothing much changes in the world game...