Are our northern counterparts lagging behind in the RWC?

Question

Are our northern counterparts lagging behind in the RWC?

Answer 1

it is a marathon not a sprint..lets see what happens first shall we?

Answer 2

I think the results speak for themselves, don't they?

Top 4 nations in the IRB rankings, all southern hemisphere....

(Susan, Argentina are ranked 4th at the moment ;-))

Answer 3

Hugely at present.

But these things go in waves. The North will learn from the South & improve accordingly.

4 years ago things were different but the tide turned soon after the 2003 RWC. In fact England beat the Southern H 3 on 12 consecutive occassions leading up to and during the world cup 2003.

The Southern H learned from that experience whilst the North has not progressed. Even Argentina are in the worlds top 6.

Answer 4

No doubt.

They should give up football/soccer if they want to stand a chance against the big boys from the south.

Answer 5

Absolutely... and by a long way.  They seem to have one team at a time that surges up towards the top and then dies away whereas the Southern Hemisphere teams seem to consistantly be in the mix.  It's probably a personality thing where our more relaxed lifestyles come out in our play.  It's more exciting and conducive to more scoring unlike the home nations that all have influences in the uptight style of England.  

Proof is that France are the only 6 nations team that CONSISTANTLY gives the SH teams a real match... when they send their A team anyway.  Ireland are exciting when on form, Scotland too but England are always the boring slow grinding game until the "open up" against the powerhouses of Romania, Uruguay and the village idiots.

Any team can rise up to the occasion on any given day but you have to believe that France are the only real NH chance at winning the RWC... and I cant see them getting passed the QF.  Cant wait to see the headlines when its an all SH semi finals with Australia pelting England, NZ beating France, Argentina knocking out Italy/Scotland and South Africa's whitewash.

Answer 6

Absolutely no doubt on this one.

You've got to wonder why though? One theory is that so many of the European club and provincial teams, particularly in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are so full of international players that this is stifling the development of young English players. We see this in soccer as well where the English club teams are so strong yet the national side continues to underperform. Even though we lose tons of NZ players to oversees we still get young players coming through to replace them - we lose Mehrtens and Spencer to English clubs and then unearth Brett, Donald and co.