'Autumn tests' leave confusing message

We have reached the end of what northern hemisphere rugby writers like to call the autumn tests and what seemed as clear as the Twickenham mud a week ago is now about as confusing as a year in the politics of Sarfu.

What appeared to be evidence of another seasonal shift of world rugby power back to the northern side of the equator has been shown up to be nothing more than a mirage, a figment of everyones imagination. If anything, wins for the Wallabies over England and New Zealand over France have confirmed what we thought back in June: the southern nations are starting to eat up the gap that was opened on them at the last World Cup.

Remember, and this is important, that the two wins scored at the weekend were done on northern fields. Remember too, for this is equally important, that it is supposed to be the northern teams who are fresh and ready at this time of the year. England defensive coach Phil Larder said as much last week when he ascribed the rejuvenation of his team to the fact they had enjoyed a break since their last match of the previous season.

So now that England, after hammering the Boks just seven days earlier, have lost to the Wallabies at Twickenham, what does it all mean? Well, for a start, there might be something in it if someone suggested that they were always going to battle against the Wallabies just a week after playing a team as physical as the Springboks.

Remember that the Wallabies only played Scotland last week, so they did not have nearly as tough a buildup to the Twickenham match. And by the same token, the Boks might have been negatively influenced last week by the tough game they had a week earlier against Ireland, where they had to also deal with the disappointment of seeing their stated mission for the tour, of winning the Grand Slam, being washed into a Dublin canal.

What I am saying is that who you play and when you play them, and how often you play them, does have a lot more influence on the results of these November and June tests. You always have one team in the full flush of a new season taking on another one itching to get it all over with so they can go on holiday.

Springbok coach Jake White probably has it right when he says that the Australian victory over England says everything about the different workload their fellow Tri-Nations team has to face in the months of September and October.

While the Boks are buried in the intensity of the Currie Cup during those months, the Aussies are able to take those months off. Well, they don't quite take them off, what they do is throw themselves into a conditioning programme that prepares them for the "Autumn tests" and which makes them a lot more ready for the challenge.

You do not build up the strength of a player by playing him every match. Over-use, as in everything in life, only leads to weakening and ultimately burn-out. And that is what, with the benefit of hindsight following another week of rugby shock and surprise, happened to the Boks on this tour.

The All Blacks were able to get themselves up against France because Graham Henry, faced with two easy games before the one hard one, was able to mix and match his players. In short, he gave the key men a much needed rest and they did not have to play every game.

The Boks, perhaps because they had spoken too much of the Grand Slam, were never really afforded that luxury. Maybe they could have rested key players against Wales, but imagine the embarrasment if they had surrendered the Grand Slam at the first hurdle.

The reality is, and we did know this beforehand, that it is extremely difficult to sort out the world pecking order of rugby powers during those seasons where there is no World Cup. There is always one team that has had enough rugby, and another that is more hungry. Former Scotland international Kenny Milne made an interesting point in one of the newspapers after the Murrayfield game when he said that the match proved again that the Scots battle to live with southern hemisphere teams that are hungry.

That was an acknowledgement that the Australians were not hungry in the previous two tests played in Scotland this autumn, and knew they could engage cruise control. For them, everything was geared towards England, and boy did they deliver when they had to.

In retrospect, the Boks may have beaten one of England or Ireland if those were their opponents in the one BIG game of the tour. But because they were chasing the Grand Slam, the Boks couldn't really isolate different matches, and this contributed to the fatigue that damned them when it mattered.

I am not for a moment suggesting the Boks were not blameworthy in their failure to achieve Grand Slam success. As this column has said before, there were a lot of mistakes, and wrong strategies were applied (I am still trying to figure out how conditions can be used as an excuse when the coach has travelled so often to this part of the world in so many different coaching guises).

Yet, the more I think of it, the less convinced I am that White was right when he said last week that "England are just physically stronger than us". I suspected it at the time but was loathe to say it for being accused of looking for excuses, but my gut tells me the Boks lost at Twickenham because England pitched up on the day and the men in green and gold didn't.

So where are the Boks on the world pecking order at the moment? I have to admit I haven't a clue. Ask me that question again in France in 2007, but save it until then.