Maro Itoje was in reflective mood as he sprawled himself in a chair that struggled to contain his 6ft 6in frame at England’s Bagshot base. “I have been in camp for only two days but you get the feeling something big is about to happen,” said the Lions and Saracens second‑row before Eddie Jones’s squad flew out to South Africa.
He was talking about England’s odyssey but his words apply also to international rugby’s changing landscape. The last World Cup not only saw England become the first hosts to fail to make the knockout stage but, for the first time, the semi-finalists all came from the southern hemisphere: in the last eight Argentina knocked out Ireland, South Africa outmuscled Wales, New Zealand overran France and Australia pipped Scotland after being awarded a controversial late penalty.
Mist settled on the game in Europe and the 2016 Six Nations was a dull, understated affair in which England secured the slam without doing anything grand.
Fast forward a couple of years and Ireland and England are second and third in the world rankings, respectively, behind New Zealand. The three countries have comfortably the best records since the last World Cup while three of the 2015 semi-finalists have won 29 Tests between them and lost 45.
More than that, Australian rugby seems locked in an existential crisis, short of money, supporters and relevance in a country where large swaths of the population are untouched by it. South Africa, meanwhile, has reacted to two years of precipitous decline by luring Rassie Erasmus from Munster and loosening the restrictions on overseas-based players for the series against England. Then there is Argentina: stuck in the losing habit, although the Jaguares are making an impact in Super Rugby.
All three countries have lost players to clubs in England, France and Japan. All the 34 players named in Australia’s squad for this month’s three matches against the Six Nations champions Ireland play for one of the country’s four Super Rugby franchises while Erasmus has called on five Europe-based players, including the Sale scrum-half Faf de Klerk and the Wasps full-back Willie le Roux. Argentina, like New Zealand, do not consider anyone who is based outside their country.
The only one of the old Five Nations countries that has had more defeats than victories since the start of 2016 is France, whose summer treat is three Tests against the All Blacks. They last won in New Zealand in 2009 and were the last team to defeat the All Blacks at Eden Park, in the last full year of amateurism. But France’s away record in the Six Nations decade has been wretched, with successes in only Scotland and Italy in the past six years.
New Zealand still lead the world’s rankings by a distance but they have lost three matches since retaining the World Cup and drew last year’s Lions series. At the start of 2018 their main challengers for the World Cup were seen as England, who in the first two years under Jones found various ways of winning. A slump at the end of this year’s Six Nations prompted suggestions of the emperor’s new clothes, given that the head coach was relying on largely the same group of players who had been involved under his predecessor, Stuart Lancaster, and they are seen as vulnerable this summer in South Africa.
The unity between club and country dissolved this past week when the Bath owner, Bruce Craig, hit out after another one of his players, the prop Beno Obano, suffered a long-term injury while training with England. Instead of asking why Jones felt the need to push his players in training, Craig trotted out the old line about players being employed by him and his fellow owners – clubs who this season bombed in Europe, yet to embrace the faster, more fluid approach, based on the breakdown rather than set pieces, that is colouring the game at international and European Champions Cup level.
Craig, whose club were run ragged by the Scarlets in Europe, would be better off seeking closer contact between England and the Premiership clubs, aligning training methods so that players have less of a leap to make to international level. There is a far higher degree of cooperation in Ireland, even if it is led from the top, and they have swept all before them this year at Test and club level.
Ireland’s record in Australia is not especially impressive: three victories in 13 Tests, the last win coming in 1979. But they have to expect to win this month’s series and not just because of Australia’s mediocre recent record, although the Wallabies did beat New Zealand last year. Ireland have won their last 12 Tests and, having blooded a number of young players, should be a team with their best days ahead of them. Joe Schmidt has kept his players on a tighter rein than he would have had he been in charge of his native New Zealand and it will be interesting to see how much more slack he allows, given the direction of the game as the World Cup looms.
Wales, who have two Tests in Argentina after Saturday’s warm-up with South Africa in Washington DC, are trying to be unstructured, if not to the extent of Scotland whose summer consists of matches against Canada, the USA and Argentina.
The most intriguing series promises to be in South Africa. The Springboks have been awful for too long and they have a long way to climb under Erasmus whose opposite number is under pressure for the first time.
Jones has continually separated the jurisdictions of club and country, saying he was responsible for only the latter and had no influence over the former. It explained his tart response to Craig’s outburst but, as long as the two run on parallel lines, New Zealand will likely remain at a distance. Something big will happen only when the English game asks itself what it wants.
