SVNS Dubai : les Françaises ratent leur entrée face à l’Espagne

Hell, I wouldn't even say the Halfback position has been nailed down by anyone yet either. Despite being first choice, Roigard is ultimately being held back by Ratima, who works better as a starter instead of a bench player. Roigard on the other hand can do both. Hotham works well off the bench, but is guilty of slightly overplaying his hand at points, costing his teams guaranteed tries. So which path do you go down? One who's reliable but completely inefficient at points, or one who can work miracles but cost you points all the same?

Robertson always goes on about combinations, a big part of why he pairs Ratima up with Chiefs teammate McKenzie, but I'm not so sure this Roigard/ Barrett pairing is clicking. A shame the Hurricanes brought in a few new Five-Eights for next year instead of giving Love a chance. Would've made for a good combination given they play together. But alas, it's not all that surprising given Razor wouldn't pair Jordie with Proctor in the ABs, despite it being a combination that has worked wonders for the Canes over the years.

The "small country" argument doesn't wash. In the mid 80s and 90s they were the only team to challenge the England France duopoly, won three championships. But they neglected their systems and haven't come close since. When Steve Anderson come to them with a long term plan they chose a quick fix instead so he went to Ireland and the rest is history.

The good news is that they've woken up and smelt the coffee. They want to prioritise Scottish talent instead of papering over the cracks with foreigners. They've hired Dave Nuciafora and they're trying to improve the alignment for their system. It's a welcome change.

"The South African Rugby Union (SARU) has confirmed it will withdraw teams from Super Rugby in favour of playing in Europe's PRO14 league, blaming New Zealand for its exit from the competition.

"SARU said its move was forced by New Zealand's "unilateral" decision to organise its own domestic competition, or possibly a trans-Tasman competition involving Australian and other teams for next year.

"That appeared to be because of uncertainty over whether a traditional Super Rugby tournament could go ahead amid the coronavirus pandemic.

"Still, SARU said it considered it a slight to not be consulted."

So there's the story, from Oz. But yeah, I'm just rubbing it in that it worked out very well for SA - and world rugby as a whole in fact - to go N-S, and any NZ whinges must blame their RU, not anyone else.

I know Damien McKenzie was the best 10 this year but didn't see who his 9 was? Roigard wouldn't have had enough games for it, surely.

I'd heard about Razors naive comments about SAs riches in the media, and can only think if he wants a team like Rassie he should build it like Rassie did. Razors experienced group is contracted locally, so all he needs to worry about now is selecting and trying out some of these "new generation 10's" he has at his disposal!

Can't say that at the begging of the year I thought the word to best describe Razors coaching this year, would be "scared".

Oh, PS doesn't Webber look good in pink, tried watching his last game (dodgy stream) and he showed that example of a small wippit able to get out of any situation many times (guess that's as regular as box kicks for a top 14 breakdown), thought he looked sharper than he had in NZ (and I had him ranked #2 last year, with Roigard as the rookie).

In fact a whole Scottish backline wouldn’t look out of place

A weak Welsh side doesn’t help when you think of some of the greats in previous sides

Not sure about McCarthy- don’t rate him that highly

Feels like there should be 1-2 more Scots but bizarrely they always get shunned

Could easily swap the wings with Graham and Lowe but these two are excellent

I think already he looks like the best part of the attack Rob! I just think Farrell has gone away from putting too much pay into that style of rugby anymore, the rest of the team don't have the timing and speed in their execution. If Sam is the link that causes Faz to decide he can go back to playing that brilliant 2021/22 football, he'd be a saviour not just to Ireland but to the game of rugby itself.

So lets say theres some sort of Super comp still running you've got the Wallabies making up Sydney and Brisbane teams? So your idea comp is to run along underneath?

Both are going to be so small (short), even with a double round robin, that you're going to run into the same predicament of nothing being played during this int window. That's why I really like the look of that last one. I'd also wonder if that 10 team aus standard would also be more balanced with the NZ 14 (provincial, poss with extra AK teams) teams than what SR currently is (well weve yet to see 4v5)? Creating a possible finals type crossover Battle of the Tasman series or something.

No matter what, if aus is changing their top it's going to alter what Super is. I'd prefer this crossover to become more like what super should deliver. I think the test standard super idea works wonders for the national teams but in honestly it's not fun to me. I'd rather it was actually a big step up going to national duty.