{"id":654320,"date":"2026-06-23T16:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654320\/"},"modified":"2026-06-23T16:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-23T16:55:10","slug":"loose-pass-fly-half-fates-decided-as-springboks-and-all-blacks-stars-drop-stinkers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/654320\/","title":{"rendered":"Loose Pass: Fly-half ‘fates decided’ as Springboks and All Blacks stars ‘drop stinkers’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with one-sided big games, accidental yellows and a weekend of pivotal interest\u2026<\/p>\n

A new level?<\/p>\n

The book \u2018The Numbers Game\u2019 by Chris Anderson and David Sally might be about soccer, but as always with elite sport, a review can contain signposts for other sports to look in a particular direction.<\/p>\n

Specifically, a section of the book \u2013 a handful of pages, not a whole chapter \u2013 remarked upon the way that many of the more recent so-called \u2018best of the best\u2019 clashes (think Liverpool v Manchester City, or Barcelona v Real Madrid) were churning out results more suited to a sort of Liverpool v Thurrock, or Barcelona v Tresviso sort of scenario. Germany\u2019s dismantling of Brazil in the 2014 World Cup would be another example.<\/p>\n

But the section posited that it was not necessarily that one team was so vastly superior per se, rather that the top-most teams had become so well-trained and elite that on their day, when it all clicks as it should, even other best teams can barely lay a finger. Not about collapses, more about the sport in general seeing more and longer spells of near-perfection.<\/p>\n

Are we reaching that zenith in rugby now? The stats even from this past weekend alone paint that sort of picture. Teams should not be running 70 points past others in semi-finals, but Toulouse did that to Racing 92 on Friday. Leinster<\/a> looked unstoppable in the first half against the Bulls. Most indicatively, the Chiefs, the self-same Chiefs who ran the Crusaders ragged not one week ago, were shredded by the Hurricanes<\/a>. Look a little further into the past and there\u2019s Bordeaux\u2019s dismantling of Leinster in the first half of the Investec Champions Cup Final. In fact, the number of breathtakingly one-sided \u2018big\u2019 games this season has almost outnumbered tight ones \u2013 such as Northampton\u2019s hard-fought win over Exeter.<\/p>\n

There have been collapses under pressure in the past, but in none of the above-mentioned games, with perhaps the exception of Racing\u2019s limp surrender in Toulouse, would the narrative be reasonably about the losing team being awful. Much more prevalent is the number of team performances this season which have been benchmark for both the season and at times, for the sport.<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s hot and who\u2019s not: Hurricanes, Leinster and Northampton celebrate while Bulls and Damian McKenzie have \u2018horror shows\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

And which is really the only conclusion worth drawing; but certainly a counter-argument to anybody disappointed with the one-sided nature of some of the Finals and play-offs we\u2019ve had over the past couple of months. There\u2019s been a perceptible improvement in quality at the sub-international level for much of this season in both hemispheres, while the recent Six Nations was also evidence that the uptick in general levels of skill, fitness and decision-making at the top level is better than ever.<\/p>\n

Assuming the trend continues, what a World Cup<\/a> we might be set for in 15 months\u2019 time! As long as those pesky defence coaches don\u2019t become too belligerent of course\u2026<\/p>\n

The yellow streak<\/p>\n

At one card each, it didn\u2019t entirely matter, but the two yellow cards dished out in the Prem<\/a> Final on Saturday both were incredibly harsh.<\/p>\n

Both involved players dipping before the tackle. Both times the ball-carrier dipped down towards the contact also. Both times the tacklers were immobile and absorbing the contact.<\/p>\n

And both times referee Matthew Carley explained all this, virtually exonerating the tackler both times, but then sending them to the bin anyway?<\/p>\n

He has his protocols, but at what point does the necessity of protecting heads transcend the boundaries of common sense? On both occasions, the tacklers concerned would have been putting their own heads in somewhat disproportionately risky positions in order to comply with the protocols; the skew towards the ball-carrier, who in both cases went aggressively to the contact point rather than evading, has become something that almost encourages players to go for contact rather than looking for evasion.<\/p>\n

Comment: \u2018Sensational\u2019 Henry Pollock lives up to the hype in Northampton Saints\u2019 PREM Rugby Final triumph<\/a><\/p>\n

Common sense fortunately prevailed when Henry Pollock charged in for a loose ball later, and happily, the two yellow cards rather cancelled each other out, but we\u2019re still too close to the edge when it comes to sending players off for unavoidable collisions.<\/p>\n

The weekend of the 10s<\/p>\n

A weekend of stories for fly-halves. Redemption for Sam Prendergast<\/a> ahead of a tough tour for Ireland, during the exact same 80 minutes Handre Pollard dropped a stinker ahead of South Africa\u2019s clash with England.<\/p>\n

It can\u2019t have escaped Dave Rennie\u2019s attention how good Ruben Love<\/a> was against Damian McKenzie either, with the latter rendered almost hologrammatic at times by both the former\u2019s brilliance and the Hurricanes\u2019 general attacking play.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s France, where Six Nations orchestrator-in-chief Matthieu Jalibert has had a couple of weeks to cool his boots after Bordeaux\u2019s failure to qualify for the Top 14 play-offs, but who can\u2019t have failed to notice how Romain Ntamack is playing, even if the latter is not going to join the France squad until Toulouse have finished the business in the Top 14. What happens there might be the most interesting fly-half story of the first round of Nations Championship matches.<\/p>\n

With quite a few fly-half questions flying around ahead of the July Tests, this felt at times a weekend where fates were decided, not just trophies.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Jeff Wilson claims Dave Rennie would be \u2018hard-pressed\u2019 not to start Ruben Love after Super Rugby final domination over Damian McKenzie<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with one-sided big games, accidental yellows and a weekend of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[88635,134407,79263,242,819,348,7079,3482,65320,11162,620,50,79323,21002,5903,101,74606,18093,52175,56,54,16296,55],"class_list":["post-654320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-bulls","tag-chiefs","tag-exeter-chiefs","tag-features","tag-france","tag-home-page","tag-hurricanes","tag-internationals","tag-leinster","tag-loose-pass","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-northampton-saints","tag-premiership","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-super-rugby","tag-top-14","tag-toulouse","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-rugby-championship","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}