The Match That Should Have Been
It’s the match we’ve all been waiting for – and it’s come one year too late.
Rewind 12 months and the stage was set for a mouth-watering showdown. Since Eddie Jones’ appointment as head coach, the English national team had gone through the 2016 year undefeated (including a clean sweep of the Wallabies in Australia) and almost set a new world record after winning 18 consecutive matches (losing to Ireland by 4 points in the 19th match). The All Blacks were the All Blacks – having the odd hiccup here and there but indisputably still the best team in the world.
Fans around the world were anticipating what could have been one of the best matches of the modern era… But it never happened. On the All Blacks’ northern tour in 2017 they faced off against the Barbarians, France, Scotland, and Wales – England were nowhere to be found.
One year later and we finally have the contest we’ve all been craving for so long – but the anticipation is no longer quite there.
A string of average performances has seen the Northern Hemisphere heavyweights fall from their lofty heights of 2017 and we’re now left with the scenario where the match between England and New Zealand this weekend is viewed as just another test match.
That’s not to say there’s no anticipation whatsoever – this is a still a game between two of the best teams in the world. It’s just not viewed with quite as much excitement as if it had been held a year earlier.
Said average results compounded with a number of injuries to top English players means that most viewers will now expect an inevitable win for the New Zealanders. It will be an interesting contest, no doubt, but next week’s match between Ireland and the All Blacks is now the ‘big event’ in November’s rugby calendar.
It’s a cruel thing that we won’t get to witness the Southern Hemisphere’s premiers laying siege to the Northern Hemisphere’s historically most successful team performing at the top of their game but, then again, we shouldn’t be too surprised that this opportunity has been missed.
Test match scheduling is a curious thing, after all. Take New Zealand’s fixtures over the last few years into consideration, for example.
Come to the end of 2018, the All Blacks will have played each Six Nations team at least once since the last World Cup in 2015. They will have played France five times, Wales four times, Ireland three times, Italy twice and England and Scotland once each. The All Blacks hosted Wales and France for a three-match series in 2016 and 2018 respectively – which is why they’ve played the greatest number of matches. This, of course, doesn’t explain why New Zealand have also played Wales and France on their end of year tours when there are other teams that they haven’t had series against.
The same has occurred with the other traditional Southern Hemisphere powerhouses, Australia and South Africa.
In the same time that England will have played the All Blacks just once, they have played the Wallabies six times. The Wallabies’ other matches have been spread amongst Ireland (four games, including a three-match series this year), Wales and Scotland (three games each), Italy (two games) and France (one game).
South Africa have also played England and France five times, and Wales and Ireland four times, with their only game against Scotland coming up in a week.
End of year tours and June tours seem to be arranged completely in isolation, which leads to the somewhat absurd schedules we’ve had. Of course, there are a range of varying criteria that goes into deciding fixtures – and one of the most important in the professional era is finances.
Matches between England and the All Blacks appear to have been discussed every year, with the possibility of including a game outside the regular test window mooted – but these talks seem to be shut down pretty quickly when the respective unions can’t decide on how to split the profits. Last year, the game between New Zealand and the Barbarians was supposedly almost scrapped to fit in an English/New Zealand showdown but, again, finances caused discussions to cease.
The new World League could see to it that we no longer end up waiting four years for a fixture to come around. The proposed competition would likely see the top teams play each other at least once a year – which has its pros and cons.
Whilst there’s no question that a match between two superpowers like England and New Zealand should occur more frequently than it has over the last half-decade, an argument could be made that annualising the fixture could take some of the sting out of the game.
There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing two teams at the top of their games facing off – so giving both teams the opportunity to build up some momentum over a couple of years before hitting the battlefield is never going to be frowned upon.
Perhaps the solution is simply for each of the Southern Hemisphere nations to travel to each of the Northern Hemisphere countries once every two years. Four or five-match end of year tours are common now. Throw a couple of other teams in with those from the Six Nations (say, Japan and Georgia), and it’s easy to see that you could avert fixtures from going stale whilst also preventing having two teams avoid each other for a number of years in a row.
Whatever happens in the future – whether or not the World League comes to fruition – it doesn’t change the fact that last year we missed out on what could have been a spectacular game. Let’s hope that this year’s long-awaited match between England and the All Blacks is still a high-quality test, even if it’s not exactly what we all wanted.
In other news:
Comments on RugbyPass
The author is 100% right. The Springboks know that they don't have near the natural attraction, mana, skill and mystic the All Blacks have. So, Chasing the sun 1 & 2 was concocted to overblow the Boks image on the back of a corruptly obtained “win". It's marketing ploy to force the Boks delusion as the World's Best. I guess World Rugby is also not to be believed when it came out with an apology about how the final was officiated. And if the 2023 final such a superb game by the Boks, then the Boks crying about Referee Bryce Lawrence for decades is also deserves a laugh. Chase the sun and get burned like a moth. A very well written literary piece that tore the Boks and Chasing the sun farce to shreds. 🖤All Blacks🏉
141 Go to commentsI’d say France was far more hard done by in the 2011 final than the All Blacks in this game. Joubert simply refused to call a penalty against the All Blacks in the last quarter even directing an All Black to drop a ball he picked up in an offside position rather than penalizing him. This article also totally discounts the efforts of PSTD. Ask Jordie how well he played. Or the backup flank who played hooker for the entire game. Siya was also a brilliant tackle by Richie from scoring a blinder. Pollard was also fantastic. Look I don’t like the boks style but the only thing more questionable than the content of this article is the timing of it. Get over it already
141 Go to commentsDad Marty was also a handy rugby player for Linwood back in the day. Great bloke. Sensational softball career.
2 Go to commentsWhat ifs are always dangerous. If you look at the game before Sam cane got sent of SA was dominating. You could make the argument the going down to 14 men rallied the troops and made them have to play to win which is always dangerous.
141 Go to commentsOmg… you are bruised And battered Benny. Stop crying … the scoreboard speaks. What a pathetic lover you are.. 🤣🤣🤣
141 Go to commentsPacific Lions, cry me a river
141 Go to commentsThis is the single worst piece of journalism I have ever seen since your last one. As a neutral, who really states that there should be an asterisk next to a win? You are an utter embarrassment to real AB fans, journalism and that joke of a house which pays you for this nonsense. Get a life, Ben.
141 Go to commentsGuys. Cancel the World Cup champions after this analysis. It changes everything. Ben knows. We’ll have to unengrave the Bokke off the trophy and hand it to the ABs, now that I’ve been enlightened about this illegitimate win. This needs to be done. Now!
141 Go to commentsBen is right here though, Springboks were woefully poor with the advantage they had throughout this game. The France match was heroic because that was an even contest this match had it taken place in Rugby Championship would have been an easy win for NZ. If anything this match should tell the Bok coaches that a lot of this team should be changed. They beat this same NZ team by record margin with the same circumstances but with a different core. They bring back the tried and tested guys and they nearly botch this game.
141 Go to commentsI knew who wrote this article from the first few words in the headline…lol. The red card actually did the ABs a favour. It galvanized them, only then did they step up a gear. Before that there was zero momentum.
141 Go to commentsFirstly the foul on Bongi was a planned move just like the NZ master plan with Bryce Lawrence you kiwis are filthy fux perhaps try to play a cleaner game next time I doubt that’s possible tho but don’t worry world rugby is on yr side they trying to take away all the BOKS strengths to help all you weakling as Jeremy Clarkson would say LA OO ZA ERR..🤣
141 Go to commentsAbsolutely spot on Ben. I certainly wouldn't gloat over a win like that. Frustrating as it is it's done and dusted and history will forever show the result.
141 Go to commentsHo hum.
141 Go to commentsNo question they were the better team. But that is the beauty of sport isn’t it!
141 Go to commentsEveryone is into Hurling in Ireland according to Porter, but only 11 of Ireland's 32 counties enter a team into the national competition. Same old blarney.
1 Go to commentsLet’s be honest. The draw and scheduling in the World Cup was a joke but South Africa found a way after having to go the hard (nearly impossible) way to the Cup Final via France and England. NZ had a hard game against France (lost) and had 5 weeks to prepare for the Quarter, 3 weeks knowing it was Ireland. NZ theerfore had to win one big game against an Irish team who played SA and then Scotland 7 days before. They won and it was de facto a semi final because they were playing a relatively weak Argentina team and it was a walk over. In the final a very rested NZ team was playing a very tired SA team and still lost. They couldn’t score more than 11 points. Put another way SA had to find a way to win while tired and they achieved that. NZ should thank their lucky stars that they fixed the scheduling in 2015 otherwise they would be dealing with a Bok treble.
141 Go to commentsPerhaps if Bongi wasn’t targeted and removed from the game in the first 3 minutes it would have been quite a different game. Maybe if NZ also faced the same competition the Boks faced to their win NZ would have looked quite different. The final score shows who outplayed who.
141 Go to commentsRubbish article! Abuladze played most of Exeters matches when fit. He got injured against Glasgow a while ago and is out for the rest of the season, thats why he hasnt played for Exeter and Georgia recently. Do some proper research next time!
1 Go to commentsGotta love it when kids throw their toys out the pram and can’t hack it with the grown ups debate. Here’s looking at you turlough! 😉🤣
148 Go to commentsThey lost the game period move on
141 Go to comments