Is there still a hemisphere gap in rugby?

So far, this has been a very good rugby WC for the northern hemisphere,. Ireland beat SA, France beat NZ and Wales beat Australia.

The Springboks or the All Blacks could still emerge as champions but will have to fight hard to do it.

For most of the time since 1995, the southern hemisphere has been a level above. Super Rugby was once arguably better than the Six Nations and New Zealand have been near unbeatable during their best periods. At the time of writing, the north has only won one world cup out of ten.

Despite adapting much slower to the professional era, Europe has now caught up in terms of player development, fitness and tactics. Recruiting so many southern players and coaches helped to spread best practice. This brain drain has also weakened southern hemisphere rugby. Australia has also declined massively as a rugby nation.

So yeah, the rugby world is now a more even field.

Top | Newest First | Oldest First

BeefySenpie · M Best Comment

It all comes down to coin. The rival codes in Australia are lucrative and far more popular, so talent is lost to other codes. Rennie was doing a decent job with the resources he had. Eddie was dismal with England so why you’d pick him to provide a turnaround is mind boggling

South Africa are as strong as ever because they’ve joined the northern hemisphere competitions. NZ has suffered because they can beat the Aussie teams with their eyes closed which provides a misleading idea of how good you truly are

deadgerbil · 22-25, M

Why do you think Australia struggled to retain its talent?

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

@deadgerbil They are caught between a rock and a hard place.

Rugby league (a similar sport with transferrable skills) is a much bigger in Australia and takes players.

Also, Australia has such an ultra competitive sporting market. Rugby league, Aussie rules and soccer all have pro leagues in a country of twenty two million. On the field, their local rivals are New Zealand and the aussies have a terrible recent record against them, going back years.m

Australian rugby union once pushed well above its weight and won two world cups. However Is multiple pressures and poor administrative leadership has seen it fall behind. Participation is down in terms of players, spectators and TV viewers. So to mez it's seems like a vicious cycle with no obvious easy way to get back to how they were.

Notladylike

@deadgerbil Union is colloquially for “private” school educated aka rich twats. So less popular maybe. I watched the game this morning and it was embarrassing wales smashed us. League and AFL are way more popular with the common folk.