Autumn Internationals - Week Two Round Up

By Nick Powell

If Last week’s Autumn Internationals felt like a warm-up, this week certainly didn’t disappoint.

England’s long-awaited clash with New Zealand more than lived-up to expectations, Wales ended a 13 match hoodoo against Australia, Scotland and Ireland survived early scares to show their class, and two compelling games on the continent gave us plenty of food for thought.

The result of this mix was that World Rugby heads into next year more open than ever in recent memory, and some interesting conclusions came out of a fantastic weekend of rugby.

_________________________________________________________________________

England fall short, as TMO takes centre stage: England 15-16 New Zealand

Stuart Barnes, on Sky Sports, described England’s opening 10 minutes against New Zealand as the best he had seen under Eddie Jones, and that was no exaggeration.

Other than a scrum penalty on their own ball, England were as close to perfect as they could be in the first 25 minutes, with New Zealand’s brief flashes not enough to get them a point.

Nevertheless, it seemed almost inevitable they would roar back as they did, and whilst we can point to at least five moments that England will be regretting, one moment stood above all.

Stephen Jones, in the Times, described the decision as a ‘total injustice’, and whilst it was a very close call, it was far from the ‘clear and obvious’ criteria, which yesterday’s game debuted as the requirement to overturn a decision.

England can feel incredibly hard done by, but they should’ve won regardless. Hartley’s bizarre subbing at half-time, Farrell’s series of errors as half-time approached (incidentally he had a fantastic game other than that), no drop goal plan and a decision to turn down the points with the game poised at 18-13 can all be seen as mistakes that probably cost England the game.

Hartley was hitting his lineouts with pinpoint precision in the first half, England only won a third of their own ball after the break.

 But credit has to go to New Zealand, who managed their comeback with quality and temperament. England will feel gutted, but they have proved overwhelmingly that their crisis has been averted, and they are among the favourites for next year’s World Cup.

_________________________________________________________________________

Wales’ hoodoo ends and France’s continues in exciting finishes: Wales 9-6 Australia, France 26-29 South Africa.

 Wales’ win against Australia could well have ended level, but Dan Biggar’ well taken penalty nudged his team into the decisive lead three minutes from time, and ended Wales 13 game run of defeats against the Wallabies, which stretches back to 2008.

It was, as Peter Jackson put it in the Rugby Paper, a ‘grim’ gam of rugby, and extraordinary not to see any tries, given how many Australia have been scoring and conceding this year and the perfect conditions the sides enjoyed under the Principality Stadium’s roof.

But there were no surprises to see the huge celebration from defence coach Shaun Edwards, with Wales’ 115 tackles at a percentage of 89% enough to see the edge an encounter where the teams share near identical statistics.

Wales' losing run against South Africa also ended in a tryless affair, back in 2014.

Perhaps more importantly than ending their run was the fact that Wales will face Australia at next year’s World Cup, the fourth encounter in three tournaments. For the first time, they’ll head into that encounter with the bragging rights.

Later on in Paris, South Africa also left it late, with Bongi Mbonambi scoring off the back of a maul, four minutes overtime.

Even more impressively the Boks fought back from 14 points down, going some way to making up for their loss from 17 up against New Zealand last month.

South Africa were understandably delighted by their 85th minute winner. Credit: The South African

 It will be a chastening defeat for France, whose losing run against the Springboks now stands at 7 games, but once again they showed a lot of quality against a South Africa side moving up the rankings.

They need to learn to manage the game better and take their chances, but they are getting closer and closer to their 2000s prime, and will be fighting for next year’s Six Nations title.

_________________________________________________________________________

Scots pull away as Ireland labour past Argentina. Scotland 54-17 Fiji, Ireland 28-17 Argentina

With the clock red in the first-half of both Scotland vs Fiji and Ireland vs Argentina it was the away sides that were in front.

Scotland battered away at the Fijian line, and Tommy Seymour’s try, as Fiji were down to 13, finally got them a lead they never looked like relinquishing.

Scotland took control after a close first half hour.

 Their superior fitness and quality told as the game opened up in the second-half, and they can be pleased with being on the right side of a 33-0 scoreline in that period.

For Ireland, the second half wasn’t quite as spectacular, but they got the job done with a 28-17 win over Argentina.

Bundee Aki crosses for Ireland's second try

It wasn’t perfect, but Ireland played some very good rugby in patches. It will be those periods that will have to come to the fore against New Zealand if they are to win though, as the World’s two best sides go head-to-head.

We'll surely know whether this was a slight blip, or a evidence of a bigger problem next week.

_________________________________________________________________________

Tier 2 round up: Italy earn crucial win as Canada and Germany make winning start to

Repechage

Italy look to have silenced their Six Nations critics, including me, and pushed back the threat of a relegation play off for a few years at least with an important and dominant 28-17 win over a spirited Georgia side.

Italy, who were woeful in their 54-7 hammering by Ireland last week, face the wounded Wallabies before a huge test against the All Blacks as they looked to show their class against the big boys.

USA earned a dramatic 30-29 win to claim their first-ever win over struggling Samoa, whilst Russia thrashed Namibia 47-20.

All four of those teams will be at next year’s World Cup but Romania, who beat Portugal 36-6 in Bucharest, will not after they missed out on the Repechage tournament for one lucky qualifying loser earlier this year.

That tournament begun this weekend as favourites Canada demolished Kenya 65-19 and Germany beat Hong Kong 26-9.

The all-but decisive game will take place next week, as Germany aim to take a step closing to reaching their first World Cup against Canada, who have never failed to qualify.

Credit: Wikipedia (apologies for blurriness)

All pictures can be found at BBC Sport unless stated