The leading southern-hemisphere countries step up into what Steve Hansen, the New Zealand assistant coach, called a touch disparagingly on Saturday “the big boys’ league”.
Only England, by beating Australia in Sydney, put a brake on the Sanzar unions who will contest the Tri-Nations, leaving the overall record from this month’s tours 8-1 in favour of the south.
Against that should be added Scotland’s 2-0 series win in Argentina, made all the more meritorious by Saturday’s result in Buenos Aires when Argentina recorded their highest win, by 41-13, over France, the holders of the grand slam. “This defeat was ridiculous, it was a nightmare,” Marc Lièvremont, the France coach, said after Felipe Contepomi — who plays for Toulon — led the humiliation of the visiting team with 31 points.
But the southern-hemisphere coaches left no doubt how they perceive the world order. “The Tri-Nations is the most difficult international competition in the world,” Graham Henry, the All Blacks coach, said after the scratchy 29-10 win over Wales at the Waikato Stadium. “Having three of the four top teams in the world makes it highly competitive.”
New Zealand remain unimpressed with Hosea Gear, who scored three tries for New Zealand Maori against England on Wednesday. Nor did they choose Zac Guildford, who put in a solid defensive display against Wales, preferring Cory Jane, Joe Rokocoko and Rene Ranger as their wings in the squad for the Tri-Nations named yesterday and whose first duty is the game with South Africa, the world champions, in Auckland on July 10.
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The Springboks have included Butch James, the Bath fly half, in their squad and recalled Tendai Mtawarira, the prop temporarily suspended from international rugby while his residential qualifications were confirmed.
Their meeting will set the tone for the tournament because Australia are struggling with injuries and made hard work of beating Ireland 26-15 in Brisbane, although they did score tries through Luke Burgess and Quade Cooper, while Jonathan Sexton kicked five penalty goals for the touring team.
Wales returned home yesterday beaten 2-0 in their series with the All Blacks but having given a young back division a taste of the big time.
Their defence in Hamilton was a great improvement from the week before in Dunedin. The scrum performed well, with Paul James growing in stature at loose-head prop, and the coaching staff were annoyed that Jonathan Kaplan, the referee, did not better reward their efforts in that area.
The latest of tries by Aaron Cruden put a gloss on New Zealand’s display, although Henry’s desire to look at fringe contenders disrupted the second half. “The All Blacks tend to get stronger from game to game and our guys could have been thinking about the flight home and a holiday but the pleasing thing was that they didn’t, they wore the jersey with pride,” Warren Gatland, the Wales head coach, said.
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Gatland brushed off speculation about his coaching future after next year’s World Cup on a weekend when the post of coach to the Otago Highlanders was advertised by the New Zealand RFU. “At the moment my focus is Wales and doing the best we can in 2011,” he said. “I’m passionate about this group of players we have and we need to get them together before the World Cup to develop that club feel.”