Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii is pretty 'confident' about return to rugby

Sheesh. Can’t believe Paul Willemse is still playing after getting 5 concussions in one year. That’s not a good image for rugby. And most certainly not good for his health!

Razor blames execution and discipline, but these are just symptoms, not the cause. When teams are under pressure, those things are the first to go out the window.

To some degree it has always been an achilles heel of the ABs (at least it was at WCs), except for the period of dominance starting in 2011. That era came about after Henry and McCaw realised after the 2007 disaster that mental strength under pressure was the fundamental weak spot that needed fixing.

Under Foster things went drastically south, and many of the same leaders have been retained. There's something not quite clicking when the chips are down.

Look at young players like Sititi, Ratima and Roigard, they seem unburdened by the weight of pressure when things are going wrong. Perhaps they don't have the same baggage to carry like some of our older stalwarts.

Hopefully Razor will see the problem for what it is. He seems like the right guy to sort it out. But so far his reliance on the old guard and their experience does not seem to be working.

Ireland test will be the toughest.

France is over-rated and England is simply not as good.

Draw bands if the men's final used rankings from 300 days before:

Band 1: Ireland (1), France (2), New Zealand (3), South Africa (4)

Band 2: England (5), Australia (6), Scotland (7), Argentina (8)

Band 3: Wales (9), Japan(10), Samoa (11), Italy (12)

Example random Draw

Pool 1: Ireland, Australia, Samoa

Pool 2: France, Scotland, Wales

Pool 3: South Africa, England, Japan

Pool 4: New Zealand, Argentina, Italy

Sample QFs based on rank:

QF1: Ireland V Scotland

QF2: France V Australia

QF3: South Africa V Argentina

QF4: New Zealand V England

Sample SFs based on rank:

SF1: Ireland V NZ

SF2: France V SA

Like in 2023, Ireland have to play Scotland 6-7 days before NZ. But unlike in 2023, NZ have a major hurdle in England and if they prevail they will bring injuries, suspensions etc into the Ireland game and perhaps crucially like Ireland they will have only one training session to prepare.

Similarly Erasmus must focus on Argentina a week before France who now have a knock out game in the bag. The exploitation of crumbs of French weaknesses masterfully exploited in the 2023 QF will not be possible with the one training session available.

This is not to imply that the result would be any different, it just shows how much fairer it is to use rankings closer to the tournament as in the women's draw for 2025.

Much better suited to the French game which is all about size and less about cardio fitness.

With 6 pools the top 6 for the RWC 2027 is critical. ARG/SCO/ITA/FIJ/AUS = 6-10. Watch the Italy/Argentina match. Scotland/Australia is more than just a test for this reason also. Australia must win this test to have any chance of a top 6 in a home RWC. Scotland cannot lose for the same reason.

Italy had a famous win against Scotland. But the controlled dominant win against Wales was another step up at least in match management.