General Rugby Discussion 3

The definition of "attempt to catch" is very generous

SRU announce 10.6 million £ loss for the season.

This summer series has the potential to be an absolute cracker and the most intriguing for years. Whilst I'd say the odds are all in favour of the home teams, there are a rake of sub plots throughout with new coaching teams, multiple player departures etc. making for an interesting few weeks.

NZ vs England is probably the pick of the ties for me, to be honest. NZ in complete transition. No Mo'unga, Cane, Whitelock, Retallick, Jordan, Smith, Frizzell or Laulala from their RWC final 23. And Beauden Barrett spent the year in Japan so is only back to join the bench.

They've a bit of a headache at halfback currently. Rumours from NZ that Scott Robertson has been in touch with Richie Mo'unga and they're desperately trying to get him out of his Japanese deal to return to NZ as he's their best outhalf by a distance. McKenzie has not been trusted by NZ much in the past despite being around the team for years now. Similarly, Aaron Smith was head and shoulders their best 9. Perenara would probably start for most nations but behind him (and McKenzie) there's a gulf in experience and proven test quality. Beauden Barrett is likely to find himself back in the 10 jersey for NZ at some point this summer, I'd imagine. But he's 33 and not the player he once was, particularly at outhalf where he hasn't played for NZ since 2022.

On the flip side, we have England who have had a similar level of turnover but had the 6N to bed guys in and played a game against Japan already where they went full strength essentially. Henry Slade was interviewed on the BBC podcast this week and said they arrived in Japan 10 days before their game. They were completely over their jet lag by match day. Auckland is a few hours further ahead but shouldn't make much of a difference to them so they'll be fully adapted to local time by their first or second day and been able to train fully.

To my mind, England are the coming team in the world right now. Hard to know if their ceiling is much higher than top 3 or 4 but they're dangerous and, mostly due to those retirements and injuries, now have a backline that is a genuine threat which is behind a pack that is filled with raw talent like George Martin, Ben Earl and CCS. I'd imagine Borthwick would have loved if Lawes stayed on given he's probably still the best blindside in the UK and Ireland but, that aside, I don't see who else would potentially get into this pack that has retired.

Borthwick is dull but he's shrewd and knows how to get his teams organised and difficult to break down. With Smith and Mitchell at halfback, they've genuine game breakers who can create something within that fairly disciplined/well drilled approach. I reckon NZ to scrape it but England to give a very decent account of themselves.