It’s probably a good idea to wait for about a week or two until everybody is back into domestic fare before commenting on the November Internationals. Once the dust has settled everything becomes a little clearer.

The Six Nations were busy throughout measuring themselves against the Tri-nations and a Samoa team that cause problems for everybody. England did make progress as was evident against New Zealand, but lost the plot (or at least the English media did) after bullying Australia all over Twickenham. After that game Sky had them crowned RWC Champions for 2011 by Monday afternoon. But South Africa brought some reality back into play and England has work to do.

Scotland played just three tests and were decimated by the All Blacks. As expected they bounced back immediately and in a monsoon beat a lethargic Springboks who looked like they had more interested in being in Cape Town than Edinburgh. Then Scotland were lucky to beat Samoa after the high of South Africa. Consistency is the big challenge for the Scots.

Ireland huffed and puffed but have little to show for it. They lost a game they were expected to win against South Africa. They struggled, like everybody else, against the Samoans. Gave a big performance against the All Blacks, but still lost by 20 points. Then beat a lost looking Argentina by a record score. Hard to say where they are at this moment.

Italy had the most predictable and solid November. They won the games they were supposed to win and lost the games they were not supposed to win. Most importantly they were consistently solid throughout unlike the other Home Nations.

Once again Wales promised much, mainly through their management, but really didn’t deliver anything. Squandered a winning position against South Africa.  Embarrassed the nation, (their own management’s words), in drawing with Samoa. Then like Ireland, played well against the All Blacks and still were well beaten.

France’s November was famous for their concession of 46 points in 35 minutes against the Wallabies in Paris. At international level, for a Tier 1 Nation, it is hard to imagine you could achieve that without having a plan to do so. But the French did the same last November against New Zealand and then went on to win the Grand Slam in the Spring.

So where does that leave the “Home Nations” for the “Six Nations”? It’s hard to say after the November we have witnessed. It will probably come down to the same thing it does every year… whichever team begins the tournament well and build momentum could go on to win it…. And that could be any four of the six!

Eddie

Over the weekend the Rugby World was focused on Great Britain and Ireland as the epicentre of the November Internationals. England V Australia, Wales V S. Africa, Scotland V New Zealand were top of the list of “must see” events. Even Ireland V Samoa, France V Fiji and Italy V Argentina were in the rugby public consciousness. It is no surprise that the November internationals involving the Tier 2 Nations did not make headline news.

One of those games that was not on the rugby radar was the Eagles played Portugal. It was our first Ranking Test since playing Russia in the opening game of the Churchill Cup in Glendale, Colorado last June. The USA are ranked above Portugal and we were expected to win the test, but it was a test in every sense of the word.

The last time the two teams met was in 1998 in Porto and the Eagles ran out easy winners scoring 60 points. I remember it well as I was the forwards coach to the Eagles at that time. But things have changed considerably in those twelve years. Portugal have developed their squad by various means.

They have six of their team playing professionally outside Portugal, mainly in France. They have contracted another six players professionally who train within the domestic environment in Portugal and like the USA they compete in quiet a number of events on the IRB 7’s circuit. They are also competitive in all the international Age-Grade competitions.

The next result is they have bit by bit clawed their way up the IRB Rankings overtaking their nearest rivals Spain on the way.

Last Saturday’s game was played at a compact stadium in Lisbon and was broadcast live on television. The whole event was run very professionally and the atmosphere was as one would expect at a full international test.

We eventually prevailed by 22-17 and outscoring Portugal by three tries to one. But it was an arm wrestle from minute one to minute eighty. Every time we scored Portugal hit right back and we could not safely say we had won the game until the final whistle was blown.

Our own performance was patchy. When you score three tries in a game and win it is hard to be too critical. But at times we made it difficult for ourselves by making silly errors. We looked a somewhat ring rusty although some of that was only to be expected as it is our first outing for our starting XV in over four months.

Having said that, we have plenty to work on with our next game on Friday in Gala Shields against Scotland A. The final game of our November Tour  is against Georgia in Tbilisi on November 27^th.

I will keep you posted…..

Eddie