Rugby Winners and Losers 2006
Argentina as usual shows good form, England with little to celebrate.
It's almost the end of 2006. A great year for Rugby and it's lime to look back at the closing moments of mud, sweat and tears of life on the field of dreams.
With the World Cup around the corner, the rugby fraternity eagerly awaited the end of year Internationals. Tradition now dictates that the Southern Hemisphere sides tour the Northern Hemisphere during the cold month of November and this year, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Argentina and the Pacific Islanders lit up the chilly fields of France, England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
There were some serious winners and some serious losers I'm afraid, but to rip out a cheesy cliché, at the end of the day - rugby was indeed the winner!
The Winners
Sticking with the whole 'rugby was the winner theme'... in my opinion it was the Argentineans who were the biggest winners of 2006. Time and time again these guys have to deal with the scraps that the rugby world throws them and they nearly always, under trying circumstances, pull through! Isolated from any major annual tournament they have very little rugby infrastructure to ensure world class results, yet with a 25-18 win against England, a 23-16 win against Italy and a narrow 26-27 loss to the French, they managed, yet again, to show us just why we can no longer continue to leave them out in the cold. Let our Christmas wish be that the IRB steps in and sets up something concrete for these guys!
On paper of course, New Zealand were the real winners, once again showing us just how dominant they really are. With a 41-20 win over England, 47-3 and 23-11 victoies over France and a 45-10 walloping of Wales, the All Blacks ended off another remarkable year. Despite having the label of 'World Cup chokers', they go into next years World Cup as the supreme favorites. In fact no one even comes close.
Ireland also had an extremely memorable November series and was the only home nation to pull through unscathed. They opened up their series with a remarkable 32 - 15 victory over South Africa, followed by a 21-6 win over Australia and ended in style by thumping the Pacific Islanders 61-17. Ireland is looking seriously dangerous heading into next year. The only concern is that they are fairly thin on numbers. Who will step up when the front line is injured?
South Africa came on tour with an experimental team. Coach Jake White's goal? To rest his seasoned veterans and allow them some recuperation time, all the while giving a handful of new and fairly raw talents the opportunity to show us what they can do and see if any of them would be up to the challenge of winning a World Cup for South Africa next year! The results? Fairly messy to begin with - but as the tour went on, even the harshest critics were won over, as fresh new faces like Francois Steyn, Ruan Pienaar, Kabamba Floors and Chilliboy Ralapele set the field alight. Some of the 'out of form' Boks regained their composure and stuck their hands up for World Cup selection. Andre Pretorious (finally), Danie Rossouw, Juan Smith, Wynand Olivier and CJ van der Linde all had great tours. The Springboks will have their big guns such as Os DuRandt, Bakkies Botha, Victor Matfield and hopefully Skalk Burger back next year and could be a force to reckon with!
The Losers
Unfortunately it was a November series the English would rather forget. Their worst losing streak in donkey's years and the hearts and minds of English rugby were truly broken, shattered and ripped to shreds! A whimsical victory over the Springboks in their second game in November did little to calm the raging fans and Andy Robinson was kindly persuaded to resign, or fall on his sword if you prefer. Dominated on their tour down under in the summer, walloped by the All Blacks 41 - 20 in the first match in November, nicely beaten by Argentina 18-25 and then beaten in their second match against the Springboks 14 - 25, English rugby is truly in the dumps.
