We get the reverse of last weekends games in round 2 and so we have some form to make our picks from. That doesn’t mean we’ll get the same again but it does give us a guide. Here are my predictions for The Rugby Championship round 2 games.
First here is a link to my round-up of all the action from last weekend.
Here is my 30 second 1 Line Predictions, for the reasoning read below.
New Zealand v Australia
Last weekend the All Blacks blew the Wallabies away with their largest every victory in Australia. Let’s be up front about it, it’s hard to see anything other than an All Blacks victory. There is some uncertainty about the game if just down to the number of injuries both sides have had. The 12 shirt is the most impacted on both sides so it’s going to be interesting who is picked and especially for the Wallabies, what that means about their style of play.
The problem is though that there was so much wrong with that Wallabies performance you can’t see it being fixed in a week. Their exit strategies weren’t working, the lineout was a liability, the scrum was poor and defence was too narrow with something like 38 missed tackles. We are all hoping for an improved performance if only to make it a more interesting game but I’m still going with a big All Blacks win.
New Zealand by 20
Argentina v South Africa
The Pumas got to within 10 minutes of winning their second game against the Springboks in South Africa. In the end the Springboks had just enough to turn things around. The Pumas performed much better than many people expected after the Jaguares form in Super Rugby. I thought this might happen as Argentina have a history of targeting Rugby World Cups and the Jaguares did a lot of rotation of players. I think this has been their target all season and this is the game they will be going after.
The Springboks on the other hand don’t have the joined up thinking in their rugby setup. There is a lot of pressure for them to adopt the Lions style of play and evolve away from their traditional style. We saw some of that last weekend but we also saw them regress into 1 out rugby for periods. It’s clearly a work in progress if that is where they are going with their play. As I don’t think that they are clear as to what they are doing and the Pumas have really targeted this game I’m going for a home win.
Argentina by 5
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