The Rugby Championship: Midweek Report

After two rounds of fixtures, we now know that it will be a showdown between Australia and New Zealand for both the Rugby Championship and the Bledisloe Cup in the first of back-to-back clashes on August 8.

On Saturday, New Zealand captain Richie McCaw scored the winning try to clinch the All Blacks a 27-20 win over rivals South Africa, whilst Australia were just too good for Argentina as they won 34-9 in Mendoza.

With the third round of fixtures not taking place until next weekend, here is a review from the second round plus a few talking points.

South Africa 20-27 New Zealand

As the scoreline suggests, this was a highly entertaining encounter at Ellis Park on Saturday night and it was the perfect way for All Blacks skipper Richie McCaw to celebrate his 140^th cap.

McCaw sealed victory in the 77^th minute to secure New Zealand’s place at the top of this condensed Rugby Championship.

This was a typical New Zealand performance and the amount of options Steve Hansen has to choose from ahead of this World Cup is staggering. It is still difficult to look past New Zealand for World Cup glory and this win against South Africa emphasised that further.

Lima Sopoaga

With it being a World Cup year, we expected experimental selections in the Rugby Championship and it was debutant fly-half Lima Sopoaga who opened the scoring for New Zealand in this encounter.

It would’ve been easy for the occasion to get to him especially at Ellis Park, but he handled it superbly and was very impressive on the night.

The 24 year-old set up Ben Smith’s try on half-time after a superb turn of pace and a lovely weighted pass. He then levelled the scores at 10-10 with the conversion and his kicking game was very good all evening.

Uncontested Scrums

The game was very even in the second half and when the hosts led 20-17, it looked likely that South Africa would close out this match.

However, the main turning point in this clash was the fact that the Springboks couldn’t contest scrums after a head injury to replacement prop Vincent Koch. This meant they didn’t have an out an out tighthead to come in his place.

In addition to this, one of South Africa’s main weapons was weakened and New Zealand took advantage of this.

The All Blacks  went on to show South Africa how to be clinical when they dismissed the chance to kick for goal three minutes from time and opted to go for the corner.

They were then rewarded when McCaw went over and yet again Sopoaga nailed the conversion and added a penalty to make sure of the win.

In terms of South Africa, their performance was very good - especially up front - for the majority of the game and when All Black second row Sam Whitelock was yellow carded on the hour mark, the Springboks knew they could dominate the scrum even further.

However the head injury to Koch meant that loosehead prop Trevor Nyakane was brought on and, despite Nyakane having played tighthead before, the decision was to go with uncontested scrums.

South Africa injury troubles

It has been well documented that South Africa have had a whole host of injuries during this Championship and it showed on Saturday night.

Meyer selected Schalk Burger as his third captain in as many weeks due to injury and maybe that inexperience across the South Africa side cost the Springboks as they surrendered another lead late on.

The contrast to New Zealand is remarkable with less than two months until the start of the World Cup.

You look at the All Blacks side and currently, the strength in depth is unbelievable and the characters they have in squad are superb. The likes of McCaw and Kieran Reed were excellent on Saturday as was Conrad Smith.

A positive for South Africa is that they are confident of having a clean bill of health for the start of the World Cup, but prop Jannie du Plessis and flanker Francois Louw are now ruled out against Argentina on with respective knee and shoulder injuries.

Lock Victor Matfield and wing JP Pietersen are also unavailable due to hamstring problems, but centre Jean de Villiers, scrum-half Fourie du Preez and flanker Willem Alberts could return for the final match of the tournament in Durban and will be assessed on Monday.

Enthralling Test match

Both Meyer and New Zealand Coach Steve Hansen will have learnt a lot from this brilliant Rugby Championship match and they will be thinking who is ready to go to the World Cup and who isn’t.

Sopgana and Charles Piutau were excellent for the All Blacks whilst superb work once again at the breakdown for the Springboks is a good sign for Meyer’s men.

Jesse Kriel is certainly one to watch in the lead up to the World Cup after another excellent performance at centre and Meyer will have some big calls to make in that midfield.

Argentina 9-34 Argentina

Mendoza was a nightmare venue for Australia last year with Argentina upsetting the odds to claim their first Rugby Championship win, but the Wallabies had different ideas this time around.

They were more ruthless in attack and firmer in the defence with Greg Holmes putting in a solid display in the front row. Their lineout has also been impressive to during this competition.

The Wallabies seem to have found ways to win at the right time. They haven’t been at their brilliant best in this Rugby Championship, but they are still level on points with New Zealand. Below, I have listed some things they need to work on, but I don’t think Australia fans will care if they are getting the results.

Michael Hooper and the openside dilemma

Michael Hooper was cited after his alleged foul play on Nicolas Sanchez and his hearing has been adjourned until tomorrow, but now there is a real debate about who will claim the openside flanker position ahead of the World Cup.

Citing aside, Hooper will be up against David Pocock and both are very worthy candidates for the shirt. Hooper has played well in the Rugby Championship while Pocock was superb domestically for the Brumbies and now showing that form in the green and gold.

Pocock has had a terrible time in recent years with injury, but he was brilliant on his first start for Australia since 2012.

He picked up from where he left off in Super Rugby as he won a handful of penalties at the breakdown as well as dismantling Argentina’s game plan all evening.

Coach Michael Cheika is in a privileged position to have so many options in this position.

Ill Discipline

What will concern Cheika though, is the amount of silly decisions his side made which led to penalties against the Wallabies.

An example of this was when, Australia put up a cross-field kick and Israel Folau took out Nicolas Sanchez in the air needlessly.

Later in the match, having already won a penalty, Will Skelton grabbed Martin Landajo around the neck, forcing referee Jaco Peyper to overturn a penalty.

And thirdly, Quade Cooper was then sent off for a late and high challenge and it was fortunate that Australia were not punished. Against a better side, they may not have been let off the hook as easily.

Goal kicker issues

If you look at some of the top nations, they all seem to have a reliable goal-kicker. New Zealand has Dan Carter (and a couple more), England has Owen Farrell, Wales has Leigh Halfpenny and Ireland Jonathon Sexton, but for Australia no-one really stands out.

They haven’t been particularly accurate so far in the Rugby Championship and Bernard Foley didn’t really do himself any favours against Argentina so someone in the Wallaby ranks needs to step up to the mark before their World Cup opener against Fiji in Cardiff on September 23.

A gulf in class but a promising side

As for Argentina, Nicolas Sanchez was much improved at fly-half and did reduce the Pumas deficit to a flattering two points just before half-time, but once again there is still that huge difference between themselves and the rest of the big three in the southern hemisphere.

A franchise in Super Rugby next season should help this, but even the basics such as fitness have let them down in both Rugby Championship matches so far.

That maybe due to their lack of depth in the squad, but with this been the start of a long season of international rugby, the Pumas will surely have some of their problems ironed out by the autumn.

The flip side to Argentina's problem is that they are looking to build for the 2019 World Cup and using this year’s World Cup as a stepping stone for their young squad to develop.

The influx of youth for Argentina over the last two years has been excellent with a wide variety of players coming through. It is key for Union Argentina de Rugby to nurture the likes of Guido Petti, Facundo Isa and Santiago Cordero if they are to be a genuine challenger in 2019.