South Africa destined for domination?
I believe that this South Africa team could become the best in the world in the next three to five years, and stay there for a while. Although the likes of Fourie du Preez and Jacque Fourie won’t be around for too much longer, the side is packed with talent, particularly in the forwards, who are in their early 20s.
They didn’t put together a sparkling performance today. Jean de Villiers admitted enough and their discipline was poor but when they were given a sniff of the Welsh line they took their chances. They’ll get better as the Autumn series goes on.
Wales – rusty or struggling?
Wales played like they hadn’t played together for a while, which is exactly the case. Missing Alex Cuthbert and Jamie Roberts before a ball was played, they went on to lose the services of Jonathan Davies, Adam Jones and Liam Williams during the first half and although they enjoyed plenty of possession they barely threatened South Africa’s line. Rhys Priestland put in a poor performance at fly-half, one of the areas where Wales do have options. What they perhaps don’t have is strength in depth in other positions and that could hurt them.
England – glass half full or half empty?
England produced a good first half performance but then couldn’t, or didn’t, keep it up in the second half against Argentina. A win is a win, and it sounds as if they are improving as the series goes on, but they’ll be concerned with their inability to maintain consistent performance levels.
Japan – one for the future?
I watched the Scotland-Japan game and although Scotland were deserved winners, some of the Cherry Blossom play was pleasing, to say the least. They scored a couple of well-worked tries, did the basics well and briefly had Scotland in trouble. They have obviously come a long way since New Zealand put 145 points past them at the 1995 World Cup and who knows, by the time they host the tournament in 2019, perhaps they’ll be ready to spring a surprise or two?
John Pennington hasn’t written a rugby book (yet) but has written one on hockey and three on cricket – for more information and for details on how to buy, please click here.