Who’s hot and who’s not: ‘Positive first step’ for Dave Rennie, Fiji’s ‘astronomical number’ stat and why Steve Borthwick should finally ‘grow a pair’
Dave Rennie, left, enjoyed a winning start with New Zealand but there was more doom and gloom for England boss Steve Borthwick
It’s time for our Monday wrap of who has their name in lights and who is making the headlines for all the wrong reasons after the weekend.
THEY’RE ON FIRE!
Dave Rennie: Starting the clock on a new All Black era was never going to be easy for Scott Robertson’s successor. No matter how well the new head coach felt he had done with his team’s preparation, the only barometer would be what unfolded out on the field and the main priority was getting the W against the French in Christchurch. This is what the All Blacks did, and while it was ultimately only by a two-point margin that was tighter than the four points which separated the teams when last year’s series opened in Dunedin, Rennie’s tenure is finally up and running after all the hyped build-up.
As he said himself in the post-game wash, the All Blacks weren’t high-fiving or jumping for joy with their success, but they are over the first-day hump, and Rennie now has match evidence with his team to build on when they welcome Italy to Wellington. His headline selection calls had encouraging rewards: two tries for Will Jordan following his switch from full-back to wing, a promising first start at out-half for Ruben Love, a mammoth work rate from loosie Luke Jacobson and a magnificent shift from inspired skipper Ardie Savea. Despite the shaky looking margin of the final result, it was a positive first step for Rennie.
Damian Willemse: Milestone appearances often slap a player painfully in the face and don’t become the celebration everyone wants them to be. However, the South African full-back’s 50th Test run with the Springboks was a wordie of a performance, highlighting how he is very much coming into the prime of his career at the age of 28. Rassie Erasmus has likened the aerial battle as a new rugby set-piece to go with the scrum and lineout, so important has it become in the battle for possession, and Willemse brilliantly performed his role in this area.
This was important. For a time in the first half at Ellis Park, there was a nasty feeling that the Springboks were potentially living a repeat of last year’s spectacular collapse against the Wallabies at the same ground with another fast team start stalling. However, Willemse and co, judiciously assisted by their quality bomb squad, took care of their second-half business and the only question that lingered after the final whistle blew on their 45-21 win was how the heck Damian de Allende, not Willemse, was awarded the official player of the match. Someone somewhere got their Damians wrong when passing the message down to the sideline.
Sam Prendergast: Sport has a lovely way of nicely timing its redemption stories, and the Irish youngster would have walked down the stadium tunnel in Sydney feeling bulletproof after hitting back from what had been a horrible Test-level 2026. His 23rd birthday last February certainly wasn’t fun as he got the shepherd’s crook two days after the candles were lit when subbed off amid a crisis against Italy, and he didn’t get a look-in for the rest of a championship where Andy Farrell summoned up the revival that resulted in the much-written-off Ireland finishing second and winning the Triple Crown.
The wounded confidence didn’t initially heal back at Leinster, as Prendergast was to lose the No.10 jersey there as well in the Champions Cup, but he finished with a URC title-winning flourish, and he continued this revival back in the Ireland green against the Wallabies. Yes, his level of missed tackles remains a serious work on, but his composure in other aspects was exactly what his team required and it was fitting that he kicked the decisive score, converting Thomas Clarkson’s late try for the two-point win to complete his heart-warming comeback.
Cam Roigard: The scrum-half found himself in the line of fire following his fake injury tactic with the Hurricanes in their Super Rugby Pacific semi-final win over the Blues last month. That became quite the controversy in the aftermath, but it was heartening how the 25-year-old coped with the criticism, going on to blow the Chiefs away in the final the following week. He has now carried this imperious form on into the Test arena, where the debate he is at the heart of is very different to June’s cheating accusation.
Having helped the All Blacks to see off the French with an incredible all-action, two-try display, the conversation has become whether he is the most in-form rugby player in the world. Saturday’s evidence suggests this is very much the case as he is reading the game a stroke quicker than anyone else at the minute and his threat level is red hot. His impending July 18 head-to-head with Ireland’s Jamison Gibson-Park should be a howitzer.
Fiji offloading: Amid the avalanche of statistics surrounding round one in the new Nations Championship, the figure that stood out by a country mile was the Pacific Islanders throwing 32 offloads in their ‘home’ match versus Wales in Cardiff. It was an astronomical number in keeping with their traditional handbrake-free playing style, and it dwarfed what the other 11 teams managed in this facet. Next-best were France on 12, but everyone else was in single digits, with the Welsh and England propping up the chart with a miserly two offloads each.
Two other stat categories embellished the Fijian flair; they made 24 clean breaks and had 42 defenders beaten. It underlined how entertaining a watch these ‘minnows’ will be in this new tournament, but the sting in the tail was how all this menace wasn’t turned into a victory. It’s clear they don’t need an attack coach, but what they could certainly do with is a calming coaching influence who can help them become more consistent finishers in the 22. Perfect that – and also spruce up their leaky maul defence which gave up three tries – and the Ws will follow.
Scotland: You can only tip your hat whenever you see a team learn from a brutal experience and deliver a much better outcome, and this was something delivered by the Scots away to Argentina. So exasperating was their collapse last November at home to Los Pumas, relinquishing a 21-0 lead and losing 24-33, that the Edinburgh crowd unceremoniously booed them off the pitch, reigniting the narrative that they needed to cut loose Gregor Townsend to progress.
Eight months later, Townsend was savouring a fully deserved 47-38 success in Cordoba where there was no November-like let-up in his team’s attacking performance. When Argentina closed to within two points early in the second half, a moment of truth confronted the Scots and their answer was emphatically positive, going on to score four more tries and bring their match tally to seven. All the sweeter was that the victory was achieved minus the injured Finn Russell.
Scotland player ratings: ‘Lethal’ and ‘silky smooth’ backs dominate as Argentina stunned in Cordoba
Jac Morgan: No Test team wants to have itself branded a one-man show, but this world-class back-rower reminded everyone on Saturday how pivotal he is to the Welsh rebuild under Steve Tandy. Morgan’s exit at club level will be keenly felt next term by the Ospreys, but his role in Wales’ 15-point success versus Fiji illustrated how inspirational a figure he remains for his struggling national team.
Two wins in 27 was the hapless run Wales were on before they defeated Italy last March, and the victory over the Fijians now means they have won back-to-back Test matches for the first time since their 2023 Rugby World Cup pool. Morgan proved to be an immovable rock in ensuring this progress happened, scoring twice and defending superbly in what was his first cap since last November’s upsetting shoulder injury. He is certainly a player Tandy can build the Welsh revival around.
Paul de Villiers and Cameron Hanekom: Starting a rookie duo in the back row with just a single Test cap between them certainly wasn’t in South Africa’s best-laid plans for their clash with England, but that is what transpired in Johannesburg after legendary pair Eben Etzebeth and Siya Kolisi pulled up lame at the 11th hour. A head knock and a tweaked hamstring were respectively to blame for the loss of players with a combined total of 244 appearances, but this unavailability ultimately didn’t hinder the Springboks.
Rather than England getting stuck into the rookies and taking advantage, De Villiers and Hanekom didn’t look out of place at Test level, and the start made by De Villiers was especially turbocharged (he has since learned he has retained his spot and will start again versus Scotland next Saturday). With points at stake in these July/November windows now that matches are part of a competition and not just friendlies, the scope for selecting newcomers was supposed to be diluted, but Erasmus has shown otherwise with the way he responded to the late loss of Etzebeth and Kolisi.
France: Les Bleus were celebrating a victory in Christchurch, but they again showed that you write them off at your peril. As was the case last year when they began their Test schedule the weekend after the Top 14 final, the round one Nations Championship selection was branded a second string due to the unavailability of players who had played in the club showpiece. However, what instead emerged was another example of the growing French depth at Test level.
That’s two years in a row now they have run the All Blacks close away from home in their July opener, and the reigning Six Nations champions will see plenty of positives in what they produced at the weekend. Oscar Jegou has become a real nuisance in the forwards, Matthieu Jalibert’s renaissance in the No.10 shirt continued, and Fabien Brau-Boirie was a midfield find. The French were excellent to watch.
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COLD AS ICE!
Steve Borthwick: Ex-Springboks boss Nick Mallett has argued that Saturday’s 24-point margin of victory flattered the reigning world champions, as the gap was just 10 before England were hit by two yellow cards and two converted tries. That’s the type of spin that beleaguered Borthwick would happily endorse, but the reality was this latest loss was more of the same frustration that has existed all the way through the head coach’s reign, even at the 2023 World Cup where they finished third. His selections seldom inspire, and the performances too often are dour and dull with limited ambition. While the RFU still believe he remains the right man for the job, the evidence increasingly suggests otherwise.
No team should go 17-0 down in the opening 12 minutes of a match where they knew the early onslaught they would face. It smacked of a poorly rehearsed game plan. While the straw to clutch was the late first-half fightback that left them trailing by three points, they didn’t kick on, suggesting that whatever the coach had to say in the sheds at half-time didn’t get the desired reaction. If five Test losses on the bounce becomes six against Fiji on Saturday, he should finally grow a pair and fall on his own sword rather than stubbornly staying on in the role.
Ben Donaldson: There was plenty to like about the Wallabies at the weekend, especially the way they took the match to Ireland and physically got stuck in. They will curse their rotten luck approaching half-time, as they could well have been 31-12 up instead of only being 24-19 ahead. Hugo Keenan’s try-saver, followed by Ireland’s length-of-field scoring sweep, radically changed the complexion, but the ultimate sting in the tail was Australia not having a reliable goalkicker. Donaldson was a 58th-minute replacement for Carter Gordon, who was three from five with his conversion kicks, and with the exchanges tightening up coming down the finish, the kicking tee became a result-deciding factor.
Whereas Prendergast nailed his conversion to bag Ireland a two-point lead, the Wallaby sub was missing two penalty kicks. Yes, they were both from far out near the touchline, but that should be no excuse. Kickers must kick successfully, or else they should not be on the pitch. It was a Donaldson miss in Italy that left Rennie on the precipice in 2022 and sacked by Australia some weeks later. Now here we are again, the out-half missing off the tee just weeks before Joe Schmidt finishes up in the head coach role and passes the baton to Les Kiss.
Argentina: It’s a good job that Felipe Contepomi favours the bald look because if he had hair he would be pulling it out, so inconsistent has his Los Pumas team become in the past year. They certainly are no dud: Just look at the virility of their play in defeating the British and Irish Lions, New Zealand and Scotland last year. Their maddening issue is their inconsistency. A deflating flop seems to always be just around the corner, and it happened again at the weekend.
Having floored Scotland with a fantastic comeback last November, they should have been champing at the bit to double down on that success, but they were an annoying spectacle in the Cordoba rematch and were a team that was beaten way more than the nine-point difference in the final result. They have a flow issue with the way they are trying to play, and it will be interesting if the head coach decides to apply to become the boss at Leinster, his old club, rather than persisting with a team whose reliability can’t be trusted at the minute.
Italy: The weekend suggested that the hangover of their history-making win over England last March has continued. The Italians were poor when they visited Wales the week after scalping Borthwick and co, and they again disappointed in their latest outing, going down by 17 points away to Japan when they should have been much better.
When the destroyer Tommaso Menoncello is credited with the loss of five turnovers, it becomes understandable why their attack didn’t fire and was limited to just a solitary fifth-minute try. It would be a shame if the huge development the team enjoyed across the opening four rounds of the Six Nations was frittered away, but that could well be the case with follow-up July matches away to New Zealand and Australia. They really need a wake-up call.
George Furbank: Saturday was supposed to be the grand occasion where the full-back was to add to his tally of 14 Test caps for England by starting against the Springboks, but he instead wound up in a Johannesburg hospital having an emergency appendicitis operation. He was certainly missed, given the way the Springboks dominated the Ellis Park skies, and his absence was the latest cruel blow in a run of international setbacks for a stylish player who should have way more caps than he does.
It was 2020 under Eddie Jones when Furbank, then of Northampton and soon to be of Harlequins, was handed a debut, but stringing a solid run of appearances together has been challenging, particularly as an injury seems to be never far away. It’s a shame as stuttering England certainly need a dynamic player of his calibre in the mix, and you have to now wonder at the age of 29 if he will be left with an unfulfilled international career.
Semi Radarara: What a horrible sight it was to see the medical cart on the Cardiff pitch twice in a six-minute, first-half spell to whisk stricken Fijian players away for treatment. The first in need of care was midfield colossus Radarara, whose ball-playing antics had helped to light up the early part of his team’s clash with Wales.
He had no right in attempting to run the ball from his 22, but run it he did and the unfortunate consequence of him taking an extra roll on the ground after he collided with contact was to get hurt and prematurely exit the fray. That same frustration befell tighthead Tim Hoyt not long after, and the prognosis from the Fijian camp is that both players sustained injuries requiring six-week rehabs. That’s a shame as it rules them out of the matches against England and Scotland.