Jake White: The brutal truth that could decide the 2027 World Cup

First off this week, I’m going to say hats off to the organisers for making the Nations Championship happen. I know it wasn’t easy. In a crowded sporting market, rugby has had to evolve and it is becoming a more free-scoring spectacle. After 22 years of summer Tests and Autumn Series, we now have a North v South tournament and we’ll see who tops the pile at the end of November!

As portents go, the opening weekend was promising. There were 53 tries scored in the opening six Nations Championship fixtures – that’s nearly nine a game! The rugby fan was in dreamland. Back-to-back rugby and some crackerjack games, so if you’re asking for my early summer blockbuster review, the verdict is in; it’s off to a flyer.

Expect teams to double down on defence
From a coaching point of view, between now and the World Cup, there will be a lot of emphasis on reducing cards, because it’s clear that whoever is keeping the most players on the pitch for 80 minutes is the likely winner. Now, I’m not digging at England, but they’ve amassed eight cards in their last five Tests. The net result is they’ve lost every game. Not good.

I was looking at the England coaching set-up after the South Africa game, and they already have three members of their coaching staff addressing every facet of defence. Joe El-Abd, Byron McGuigan and Richard Wigglesworth but they’ll need to work even harder to eradicate discipline issues. People largely think defence equals tackling, but it’s more multi-faceted than that. It’s not giving penalties away, it’s getting your body height right on both sides of the ball, it’s understanding not to be in front of the ball.

However, if you look around the Test game, England aren’t alone in trying to find solutions. There’s a lot of coaching movement, especially around defence. Shaun Edwards has left France, with Gerald Bastide taking over on an interim basis – and I’ve been told Fabien Galthie has been taking a more hands-on approach in that area. In New Zealand, new coach Dave Rennie has appointed Tana Umaga to look after the D and Les Kiss is soon to take over from Joe Schmidt in Australia – don’t forget Les was South Africa’s defence coach at the turn of the century.

Nations Championship

Northern Hemisphere

P

W

L

D

PF

PA

PD

BP T

BP-7

BP

Total

1

Wales

1

1

0

0

5

2

Scotland

1

1

0

0

5

3

Ireland

1

1

0

0

5

4

France

1

0

1

0

2

5

Italy

1

0

1

0

0

6

England

1

0

1

0

0

Southern Hemisphere

P

W

L

D

PF

PA

PD

BP T

BP-7

BP

Total

1

South Africa

1

1

0

0

5

2

New Zealand

1

1

0

0

5

3

Japan

1

1

0

0

4

4

Australia

1

0

1

0

2

5

Argentina

1

0

1

0

1

6

Fiji

1

0

1

0

0

In Wales, Steve Tandy is an experienced defence coach, but he’s brought Pete Murchie in to help what is a fairly young coaching set-up. Fiji have switched head coaches with Senirusi Seruvakul replacing Mick Byrne. A lot of sides have figured, with 15 months to go to Australia 2027, they have to get that area of the game right because the body of irrefutable evidence is that in this era of attacking dominance, defence will still win you games.

The Test game resembles rugby ‘Battleships’
When I was a young lad, I used to love the naval strategy game, ‘Battleships’, where you’d use co-ordinates to sink the enemy’s fleet. Well, Test rugby now has that battleship mentality, because once a team loses a player to a yellow or red card, they will switch gameplan to exploit the space surrendered by the opposition. For the analysts, it’s about understanding how every blade of grass is going to be covered when you lose a player. Take the back three.

If you lose a right wing, guess where the opposition is going to try and hurt you? You saw South Africa on the weekend, exploiting the gaps left by Tommy Freeman when he was yellow-carded. The analysts are drumming into players what to do in every eventuality and scenario planning has gone to such a macro level that teams are mapping out what action to take in every position, if the opposition team loses a full-back, wing, centre and so on. On the flipside, with the technology available and in-depth game analysis available, the defence coaches are trying to outwit attack coaches by figuring out how to cover that space. Rugby has never been more strategic.

Nations Championship rugby is no longer ‘take the three’
Over previous decades, in summer and autumn internationals, I often heard coaches saying, ‘well we won’t be going for bonus points, we just need to win the game’. Even Rassie said it, but after the France v New Zealand game, everyone twigged onto the fact that they needed to chase try bonus points – which puts defence coaches under even more pressure.

On several occasions last weekend, I saw captains opting to take a tap penalty or opting to kick for the corner rather than take an easy three points. The onus is on scoring tries. By the end of the day that had amassed 381 points at an average of 64 points a game, in the Argentina v Scotland game, the commentator was almost flabbergasted when Julian Montoya told Tomas Albornoz to take the three in the 33rd minute. Historically, you’d take every point available, but not now. The format is similar to the Six Nations, but over seven games, like the World Cup, every point matters, just over a longer period of time.

The world rugby axis has tilted North
Pre-pandemic, South African rugby fans could have told you who the Crusaders full-back was, the Blues openside, the Queensland Reds lock, or the Brumbies tighthead at the click of a finger, but now they’re far more likely to know who the Glasgow wing is, the Leinster openside or the Cardiff fly-half, because we’re visiting those teams more often and fans are pinpointing players who could play for their country and cause the Boks problems.

In a way, that move has actually knitted the global game together, but the Nations Championship takes it a step further, because rugby fans are watching every result closely and how it affects the North v South table, rather than solely focusing on the side touring that summer. Every South African is now watching how Ireland are faring against Australia, or France against New Zealand, because it actually affects the table and, by proxy, their devotion to the Boks.

Scotland are rugby’s ultimate ‘Bazballers’
In terms of switching lanes from club to country, there is no one better than Gregor Townsend’s Scotland. To go to Argentina and win in such an impressive manner is some achievement. The blueprint they have is underpinned by having just two teams to pick from. That can’t be underplayed. Indeed, Glasgow, with 19 players in the Scotland squad, have the biggest squad contingent in any country and really helps with having an aligned style.

Yes, they have fewer players to choose from, but they have bought into a way of playing and it’s working.

The way Glasgow play under Franco Smith is a copy and paste of how they’re playing at Test level. Obviously, Argentina were missing French-based players like Marcos Kremer, Justo Piccardo and Efrain Elias but even so, I’ve toured to Argentina and it is very, very daunting. They played in Cordoba and it’s in the middle of nowhere. To get a bonus point win there would have been especially sweet after their second-half collapse at Murrayfield last November. They are No 5 in the World rankings on merit and doing so with limited resources. A doff of the cap from me.

The increasing influence of ‘Le Petit Generale’
One position that has never been more important in Test rugby right now is scrum-half. If you look at the influential role played by Maxime Lucu in dovetailing with club team-mate Matthieu Jalibert for France, or player of the match Cam Roigard’s individual display for New Zealand or Grant Williams’ running game in Johannesburg and Jamison Gibson-Park’s almost sixth-sense alertness in Sydney, it’s becoming clear that your 9 can tip the balance whether you win or lose.

Even without their lynchpin in Finn Russell, the game management of Scotland’s Ben White was exemplary. He’s clearly picked up a lot from playing in France because that dual role the 9 and 10 can sometimes play. Remember Morgan Parra, Dimitri Yachvili, and Antoine Dupont can play 10, while Freddie Michalak was happy to slot in at 9. The 9 has always been at the fulcrum of any side, but last weekend it really stood out.