Wales have lost their past 11 matches against Australia and while the Wallabies are not as strong as a year ago, the hosts must keep their heads in closing stagesAustralia’s matches against Wales have come to be a victory of mind over matter. No matter how much time the Wallabies spend on the back foot, trying to disengage from a scrum or checking their body parts after a rampaging run by Jamie Roberts or George North, they keep their heads so that when a game nears its end, with lungs bursting and legs aching, they have the wherewithal to fashion the decisive play.The Wallabies have snatched victory at the last over Wales too often for it to be a coincidence....
One year on from the Rugby World Cup, Robert Kitson ranks the top tier sides, with the All Blacks showing no sign of losing their dominanceEighteen wins on the spin and counting. The All Blacks will not stay unbeaten forever but sometimes it feels that way. Over the next month they will face Ireland (twice), Italy and France and, barring accidents, it should be 22 straight victories by the time they fly home. The head coach, Steve Hansen, and his lieutenants deserve credit for the impressive manner in which the team has refocused and developed since retaining the Webb Ellis Cup last year. Who said Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Ma’a Nonu et al were irreplaceable? In the shape of Aaron...
The Australian Jason Ryles has been hired to ‘crank up intensity’ at the training camp where Jones must evaluate Courtney Lawes’ and Dylan Hartley’s fitnessThe last time England’s rugby players came out to Portugal to prepare for a big game against South Africa was in 2007 during the brief reign as head coach of Brian Ashton. It was an odd period with varying opinions on the best way forward, not least from within the dressing room. England, then as now, had injury concerns and ended up losing 36-0 to the Springboks in Paris.They did, admittedly, bounce back to face the same opponents in the World Cup final but Eddie Jones, as he made clear in the Algarve sunshine on Monday,...
New Zealand are in imperious form but the gap between the northern and southern hemisphere teams, All Blacks excepting, may not be as great as beforeNovember is a month when the clocks have just gone back and darkness descends on the home unions in the form of the major southern hemisphere nations. This year there is some light to tickle the green shoots of hope: the All Blacks are not venturing into Britain, the Wallabies are wobbling and the Boks have lost their spring.Australia start their five-match tour in Cardiff on Saturday5 November. Given the combustibility of their head coach, Michael Cheika, in recent months – he raged in his media conference after the Auckland defeat to New Zealand last...
After the injuries to Sam Jones and Anthony Watson, it seems players are beginning to buckle under the demands placed on them by club and countryAs Eddie Jones is discovering, there is no such thing as a mellow autumn for an England coach. His predecessors Martin Johnson and Stuart Lancaster often had to scrape bits of their squads off the floor before the November internationals and history is starting to repeat itself.Already Manu Tuilagi, James Haskell, Sam Jones and now Anthony Watson are out of contention, with Owen Farrell, Dylan Hartley and Ben Te’o yet to prove their fitness and the first two rounds of the European Champions’ Cup still to come. So far so normal. The difference this time,...