Ireland face tough task of keeping Folau quiet
BRENDAN GALLAGHER sets the scene for the big Southern Hemisphere tours set to depart in June
THIS summer has a very different feel to 12 months ago. Last year everything was dwarfed by the Lions tour to New Zealand but this time around there are a clutch of full bore visits from the Northern Hemisphere down south to get your teeth into.
Ireland are riding high, pulling clear of England and Australia as the world’s number two ranked team, and Joe Schmidt’s side could underline that lofty position with a series win in Australia over a Wallabies outfit that must somehow rise above the disappointing form of their Super Rugby franchises.
The Irish must be considered favourites but Australia can still be difficult to beat on home soil. Ireland might have won their first three Tests in Australia – a one-off game in 1967 and a splendid 2-0 series win there in 1979 – but they haven’t tasted success there since, losing the last ten Tests on the trot.
“They are obviously very well coached, they’ve got a clear and coherent plan they want to deliver and they deliver that plan every week,” says Australia coach Michael Cheika. “That’s what’s got them to number two in the world and it’s a place that we’ll be looking to cut them down from when they come over here.”
Possibly the one cloud on the horizon for Schmidt is the end-of-season workload on some of his key players. Ireland, as has been well documented, were ahead of the game most of the season in ‘managing the minutes’ brilliantly in the autumn and mid-winter. However, as the season reached a climax that has become more problematical with Six Nations, the knock-out stages of the European Cup and the PRO14 run-in and play-offs. Some of the Leinster and Munster stars must feeling the effects.
Australia have made it as uncomfortable as possible by staging the first Test at the Suncorp in Brisbane, their citadel stadium, where they will look to hit the ground running. Much of the attention – in all senses – will be on Israel Folau as he returns to international rugby after being granted a sabbatical at the end of last season when he was scoring Test tries for fun.
Folau the rugby player is key for Australia and a joy to watch but Folau the private individual and ultra conservative Christian with strong views on homosexuality is a big problem and a bore. There is no question that a period of radio silence would now benefit both the incredibly talented full-back, Australia and rugby in general.
I’m taking Australia, possibly a little against expectation, to nick this series 2-1.
Regarding England’s trip to South Africa, it’s worth emphasising how tough a place it has been to win with England claiming just three victories in 13 games although there was a drawback in 2012.
The last England triumph came in 2000 with a 27-22 win in Bloemfontein which was the start of 14 straight wins against Southern Hemisphere opposition for Clive Woodward’s team. A certain Jonny Wilkinson, just turned 21, kicked all 27 points for England.
As ever, one of the main points of interest is how the incoming team combat the perennial altitude question. England play their first two Tests on the high veldt – Johannesburg and Bloemfontein – before the concluding game in Cape Town. Eddie Jones has opted to base his team in Durban and fly in and out for the two Tests up north on the Thursday night or Friday morning.
There is no proven way to beat the altitude effect but this ‘in and out’ approach has garnered many supporters over the years while it should also leave England in reasonable shape for the third Test. The current thinking is that although in the long term a spell at altitude can be beneficial when you come down to sea level it can take a week or so before that kicks in properly. Between times you can be very sluggish.
The other factor here is that the weather in Durban in June can be hot and steamy and in Jones’ estimation comparable with what England can expect at the World Cup in Japan. A useful dummy run.
As for the Welsh, the centrepiece of their summer is two Tests in Argentina but first comes their opening fixture – before the World Rugby Test window starts – against South Africa in Washington DC. This has not been entirely without incident with first financial concerns over its staging, worries how big a crowd may attend and then Wales’ decision to withdraw three Premiership players from the tour party.
Wales had initially named Thomas Francis, Josh Adams and Luke Charteris in the certain knowledge, from previous similar incidents, that Premiership Rugby were very unlikely to release them. When push came to shove that’s exactly what happened so Wales decided, rather harshly, that they would discard the trio altogether, for the Argentina Tests as well, and call in Ashton Hewitt, Aaron Wainwright and Rhodri Jones respectively.
With the Scarlets and Cardiff flying high and a thoroughly respectable Six Nations under the belts, Welsh rugby is ticking along very nicely and really shouldn’t be getting itself in such needless fights. Especially when they are manifestly in the wrong.
On this tour with Alun Wyn Jones taking a rest there is an opportunity for Cory Hill, named as a joint captain with Ellis Jenkins, to assume more responsibility at lock while Jenkins could be a revelation in the Wales back row, their greatest area of strength.
As for the Pumas, despite a run of injuries they should be much more formidable than last summer against England. The Jaguares, with four road wins on the trot in Australia and New Zealand, are going well and, with the final decision on whether to reintroduce European based players still on hold, the Pumas team will again be based firmly on the Jaguares.
France and summer tours are not a happy mix and the reasons aren’t difficult to discern. The T14 season is so brutal and so long that the majority of French players are in pieces come mid-June when they really should be on the beach or in the operating table having their broken bodies repaired.
And of course, France simply haven’t been very good over the last decade. Last summer they weren’t at the races in South Africa where they lost the series 3-0 against a very limited Springboks side, and it was a similar story in Australia in 2014 and New Zealand in 2013. There have been two drawn series in Argentina and interestingly two years ago – which included the rare highlight of a 27-0 win at Tucuman – they sent a youngish squad short of galacticos who were given the summer off.
There is a whiff of that this summer. Guilhem Guirado and Wenceslas Lauret are taking a rest while Louis Picamoles, Maxime Macheneaud and Virimi Vakatawa are all undergoing running repairs along with crocked youngsters Damian Penaud, Antoine DuPont and Mathieu Jalibert.
The one occasion in the last ten years that France have really manned the barricades on tour was in 2009 when they travelled to New Zealand and drew the series courtesy of an outstanding 27-22 win at Dunedin when a young Mathieu Bastareaud, left, got into hot water. Nearly a decade on
Basta can still be a controversial figure but his true worth as a player is now recognised and he could even skipper the side.
This year much, as ever, will depend on the first Test in Eden Park. Lose that and it takes no stretch of the imagination seeing France disappearing down the drain. And of course nobody wins at Eden Park, New Zealand now boast a run of 40 unbeaten Test matches dating back to 1994 when, yes, it was France who beat them 23-20 courtesy of Jean Luc Sadournay’s try from the end of the earth.
It’s difficult to see how France can repeat any of these glories, but after a pretty decent Six Nations new coach Jacques Brunel will be demanding strong resistant performances and hoping one or two of his younger players can move to the next level.
The bad news for Brunel is that New Zealand probably experienced one of their rare blips last season with that drawn series against the Lions but the squad Steve Hansen recently announced was dripping with talent as the All Blacks start to home in on RWC2019.
With Kieran Read still recovering from spinal surgery Sam Whitelock has been appointed as captain and Ben Smith, back from his sabbatical, is one of two vice captains along with Sam Cane. Anything other than another 3-0 series drubbing for France would be a huge shock.
All of which should tee up the Kiwis perfectly for the Rugby Championship when summer merges into early autumn. This tournament had become a New Zealand benefit and its impossible to forecast anything other than yet another All Blacks title.
That is praiseworthy, less is the organisers’ decision every year to grant the Kiwis three home games in the first four, with even that one match being a short hop over the Tasman Sea to play Australia.
That perennially gives them a huge advantage over South Africa and Argentina and the reason the Rugby Championship is often over as a competition by Round 4.