Why we need a global season

Here we go again. There is that uneasy feeling, that feeling that you want to celebrate but that what we would be celebrating might not be real.

The reference is to the beginning of north/south hostilities in the incoming tours phase of the southern hemisphere international season. In the past the questions, such as they are, have been in a big part answered by the make-up of the teams sent on tour.

In the earlier part of this decade there was a long sequence where touring squads sent south in June would bear little resemblance to the teams that had represented those nations during the northern winter.

But while the officials of the competing countries are delivering their side of the bargain by ensuring the top players do tour rather than stay at home and rest, this past weekend saw no change to the lopsided results that we tend to see at this time of the year.

The Ireland cause was of course not helped by the Jamie Heaslip indiscretion in New Plymouth. Being down to 14 men after as many minutes ensured that the Irish were always going to be whacked, and they were, with the All Blacks piling on as many as 38 points in the first half.

But the Irish also looked whacked in another sense, away from the scoreboard – they looked distinctly jaded and off the pace. Is that because, as the Bok coach suggested last week, the game is just quicker in the southern hemisphere? Perhaps, for the other two results of matches featuring SANZAR countries against Six Nations teams also suggested a wide chasm between the Super 14 and Europe.

I watched the Australia/England game with a whole bunch of fellow journalists on a television at Newlands before the South Africa/France game. When the teams were lining up beforehand there was a consensus that England had an excellent chance given the injury swathe that had cut through the ranks of the Wallabies.

England did have a significant advantage throughout the match over the severely depleted Wallaby scrum. But before the “slow poison” started to have an impact later on, the Australians looked as though they were running on a fast motion setting while England were running on slow motion.

Certainly the England players fitted the description of a colleague, who likened them to “old donkeys”. England’s scrumming superiority eventually made the game a lot closer, but had the Wallabies taken all their scoring opportunities in the first half, they would have done to England what Germany did to Australia’s soccer team on Sunday night.

The Newlands match was no different, only in the Springbok case the scoring opportunities were taken – and in no time at all France were well behind. France were fielding a few new caps, but they still had an excellent team on paper, and in the past the French have shown themselves to have as much depth as South Africa does.

France did beat New Zealand in the first test of their tour last year, and they are the one northern team that has troubled South Africa in South Africa since the early part of the last decade. But as they fell apart in the face of the Bok pressure it was impossible not to think back to when the roles were reversed in Toulouse in November.

South Africans made the excuse then that the Boks were tired, and there was no denying that they were. The Boks played well at Newlands, but there was also no denying that after their long season, the French, who looked like tired players, have every reason to be fatigued.

So did the past weekend tell us that the south is some way ahead of the north? On the face of it, you would say yes. And let’s not forget that New Zealand smashed France on French soil last November, so giving the lie to the theory that the Bok results on the end of year tour could only be ascribed to fatigue.

But that does not allay the feeling of hollowness that accompanies the June results, as indeed it does at times in November. Neither does it answer the big question we are wanting answered – are we better than them, and if so, by how much?

Unless we are satisfied with only ever seeing that question properly answered in a World Cup year, which is the only time the playing fields are level, the only solution is to introduce a global season like they have in the round ball game.