A Dummy’s guide to beating the Tri Nation teams at RWC 2011

As I am no rugby analyst but a fervent rugby supporter I have been watching Southern hemisphere rugby for some time now, you would perhaps not want to pay too much attention to what I am about to divulge, I would however ask you to forward this to PDV as he needs any help he can get.

Let me start off by congratulating the Wallabies on winning the 2011 Tri Nation Trophy to add to their Super 15 trophy, it seems those spiders will truly have to find a new home now.

How do you beat the Tri Nation teams?

Wallabies
The strengths of the Wallabies are their electric backs, they possess an inordinate amount of skill and pace in their back line, but in that lies the opportunity for their opponents, their reliance on their back line to make play and create opportunities means that although they don’t have a bad forward pack, it is not the best in the business and as they tried today to be as physical as they could be, it soon became apparent that they ran out of puff during the second half, their scrum struggled most of the game and they don’t seem to have the ability to maintain that physicality for 80 minutes.

So if you deny Genia and Cooper space, keep pressure on them and front up to their back line they will struggle, if you are going to kick make sure it is out, do not give them space.

All Blacks
The All Blacks play as a collective unit, whether it is their backs or forwards or a combination of them, in that lies their strength as a team. They do have brilliant players, but Graham Henry has coached them very well to perform in the collective. South Africa last week and Australia this week have shown that the All Blacks are like any other team, if you front up to their forwards you can dominate possession, but as shown today in the second half, if you relax that pressure, they will sense it immediately and gain that dominance in possession.

So in my humble opinion the secret to breaking down the all Blacks is to defragment their forwards, if you manage to break that collective unity that they as so capable of, you can dominate possession. Back rows hunt in packs, and non more so as the All Black back row, stop their collective effectiveness and things immediately becomes easier.

Springboks
The Springboks do have a very physical pack, as shown their scrum can be vulnerable, especially when PDV decides to put John Smit as prop, they seem to lose cohesion in the scrum and John Smit is for certain a big weakness there. The springbok weakness in defence lies on the outside, and in particular between Fourie du Preez and Morne Steyn, due to his hesitancy on defence it draws in Jean de Villiers to back up for his inadequacies which instantly creates every other back to have to drift in and create space on the outside.

So don’t give the Wallabies space, they score tries when they get space, scrum them into oblivion and be very physical at the rucks, it doesn’t seem they can front up for 80 minutes.

Break up the All Blacks unity and collective play at the breakdowns, be physical and in their face on defence.

Against the Springboks attack the du Preez and Steyn channel, then go wide and chances are you’ll score.

So in a nutshell, if your teams don’t do that they are in for a long day at the office.

Nice article, though to be fair I doubt any of the 6 Nations teams are in any position to match the Tri Nations teams at the moment.
The gulf isn't as bad as it could be, and all the Tri Nations teams are making their fair share of mistakes and poor play, but Scotland, Italy, England and Ireland have almost no attacking threat. While Wales pack is far to weak to compete and France are erratic.

Same old story from me for Wales, nothing on, kick long to touch , no gifting balls in space ( classic Welsh play at the moment! ) yes they will all win their lineouts, everyone does anyway against us , we dont contest. We will have more control as to where the game is being played, and time to assess what is infront of us, not in the game plan!!