Between Ireland-New Zealand and France-South Africa, the weekend's rugby was an absolute treat. Personally, of my four preferred winners, only the least preferred (England) got through, but you can't complain when the winners put in the performances they did.
England-Fiji I wasn't that bothered about - England is my second team (I'm a Scotland fan for rugby), but as neither Fiji nor England seemed capable of winning the semi-final it wouldn't have been bad for Fiji to get through and draw some more World Rugby attention to the South Sea Islands.
I thought it was Ireland's year to go further, but the All Blacks were outstanding (as Mark Pougatch put in in the ITV commentary, you don't ever get a 'bad' All Blacks side).
Wales I preferred against Argentina just for the Northern Hemisphere/Home Countries ties.
The really disappointing one, though, was France going out to South Africa. In sport normally I have my preferred team, then whoever is playing France is next, but with Rugby I just have to dislike South Africa. And France have been playing absolutely delightful rugby in the past couple of years, too.
So I'll be looking for a silver fern for the final, I guess.
I think a lot of people thought this just might be the world cup where the northern hemisphere sides came to the fore - particularly Ireland and France. But yet again when 6 nations sides come up against rugby championship sides the latter are better.
I don't think that they were noticeably better - the finest of fine margins were the difference this weekend. The bounce of the ball, here and there - Ireland were held up over the line by an individual moment of absolute brilliance from Barrett, but a few chip throughs that bounced ever so slightly different, a few desperate off-loads from New Zealand that stuck that on another day wouldn't and it could have easily been different.
Similarly with France and South Africa, they were so close all through - a different referee in that game with a very slightly different interpretation of (say) the scrum and South Africa could easily have lost by a point or two instead of winning by a point.
And I cannot see England coming close to matching south africa, so we'll probably have another all southern hemisphere final.
Can't argue with that - and you certainly can't see Argentina or England raising their game enough to win both remaining matches.
The 6 nations teams really do need to have a route and branch reappraisal of how they can, frankly, get better.
Ireland and France are the top 2 ranked teams in the world, and the six nations has five of the top 8, with only Italy below Australia and Argentina. South Africa and New Zealand are excellent, at the moment, but Australia and Argentina are not on the same level as the mainstream Six Nations sides, let alone the top 2.
Currently, and for decades, they've simple not been good enough.
Historically, I'd agree, but currently I wouldn't. The trick for the northern sides is to build on this current status and make sure it's the start of something, not the peak.
And at the heart of the matter is the 6 nations itself - a tournament played year after year between the same (compared to the world's best) second ranked sides. How is that helping the likes of Ireland, France, Wales etc to develop. It isn't as we've seen yet again when they come up against southern hemisphere sides in matches that actually matter.
South Africa and New Zealand play each other, and then Australia (who have been fading for a few years) and Argentina, and yet they maintain those standards - the problem doesn't really lie at the international level, it lies at the club level and at the cultural level where rugby struggles to compete against sports like football in the northern hemisphere in a way that it doesn't in South Africa and New Zealand (but does in Argentina, or where it's losing out to Rugby League in Austrialia).
O.
