Rugby Championship 2017 SOUTHERN SUPREMACY

AS ALWAYS, THE RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP IS GOING TO BE A FASCINATING BATTLE FOR ALL FOUR TEAMS. AND AS ALWAYS, WE WON’T EVEN PRETEND TO OFFER YOU ANYTHING USEFUL AND INSIGHTFUL AHEAD OF THE COMPETITION.

The Big Picture 1 CLOSING THE GAP

New Zealand won last year’s Rugby Championship just four games into their campaign. And there was never any doubt they were going to win it because they were simply miles ahead of the other three.

The statistics were quite ridiculous in the end. The All Blacks averaged five tries and more than 43 points per game.

They walloped the Boks twice – really drilling them in Durban in the final match with a performance that illustrated there was a gulf rather than a gap between the two teams.

It didn’t make for much in the way of theatre or drama and the competition needs a bit more bite and intrigue than it had in 2016.

For that to happen, either the All Blacks are going to have to regress quite badly – which doesn’t seem likely. Or one of the other three is going to have to sort themselves out.

New Zealand romping away with it again won’t be healthy for Southern Hemisphere rugby.

2 A BUGBEAR

Last year saw Australia and New Zealand enter the Rugby Championship with an already strained relationship.

There was lingering tension between the two teams – a legacy of the World Cup where each felt the other was guilty of off the ball and underhand stuff.

That ill-feeling went through the roof, however, when the All Blacks found a listening device in their team room ahead of the first Bledisloe test in Sydney.

The Australians felt they were accused of planting it – which they weren’t – and once the police got involved, as they had to, the two nations were at each other big time.

Wallaby coach Michael Cheika reacted angrily after his side lost in Wellington – claiming Steve Hansen had met with the referee before the game [which he hadn’t] and that a chronic lack of respect had been shown to his side by the match officials.

Cheika went nuts again after the loss in Auckland in late October, claiming, strangely, that the New Zealand Rugby Union had conspired with the New Zealand Herald to run a cartoon of him as a clown.

There’s a lot of ill feeling and bad blood between the two which needs to simmer down or things could turn ugly on the field.

3 REF REHAB

It has become a constant source of frustration for players, coaches and fans that a number of Rugby Championship games are held hostage every year by average refereeing.

No one wants to be mean or overly harsh because it’s not easy controlling a test. However, even allowing for the complexity of the rules, the speed of the games and the desire of all teams to push the boundaries, too many referees get too many things wrong, too often.

There, said it – so it is time for that to be fixed. Please.