ON RUGBY/Gerry Thornley: As phoney wars go the coming round of autumn Tests is intriguing. A year and a dozen or so Tests per country will have passed by the time the World Cup arrives next October, and although these games have their own legitimacy, with the four-yearly global feast only 12 months away it's impossible not to look at them in that context.
After laboured wins by Wales at home to Romania and Australia away to Argentina last weekend, there are another 17 Tests over the next three weekends. At least six of them will be dress rehearsals for World Cup match-ups, so by the end of the month a world pecking order will have been established.
Granted, it will be a mock pecking order, and many players will have come and gone by the time everyone congregates in Australia. Yet it's better to have the mental fillip of wins rather than defeats to reflect upon. For the coaches, especially, results keep the critics quiet and allow them to get on with their jobs without potentially disruptive flak.
There's a tendency in our (media) game to overstate the relevance of these matches, and the bottom line is that come kick-off on, say, November 1st in the Colonial Stadium in Melbourne next year, the result of Ireland v Australia in Lansdowne Road 51 weeks beforehand won't have much bearing.
Even so, England play host to the big three from the Southern Hemisphere on successive Saturdays, and as Lawrence Dallaglio said in an interview in the Observer yesterday, these Tests constitute "a development process for the World Cup". He then added:"But beating some of the best teams on the planet along the way would obviously be a huge confidence boost."
Dallaglio also likened the series to playing Brazil, France and Argentina in football, and it's easy to believe that England will again derive more benefit from this autumnal feast than their European rivals. Imagine Sven Goran Eriksson's delight if he had a full squad to choose from and a three-match friendly programme against such a standard of opposition? This is partly why international rugby is holding its own against the increasing might and influence of the club game rather better than its football counterpart.
That aside, you learn more from playing your betters than your equals, never mind your inferiors. Under Clive Woodward, no European country has gone out of their way to play the Southern Hemisphere trio as much as England.
In the previous four autumn rounds of Tests going back to 1997 (World Cup year in 1999 provided a diversion), England have played host to the Big Three 10 times. Coupled with eight Tests on summer tours, and meetings with the All Blacks and South Africa in the last World Cup, England have thus encountered the trio 20 times. In the same time, Ireland have met the All Blacks, the Springboks and the Wallabies 11 times.
Even France have had nothing like the same exposure to the Big Three as England. Suffice to say, it's debatable whether New Zealand, Australia and South Africa are England's betters anymore, and certainly not at Twickenham.
ROB ANDREW on Radio Five on Sunday rather dismissively forecast that England will beat all three this month, and attributed England's improvement at Test level in large part to the professional nurturing of a new wave of talent for the benefit of team England.
It's true to a degree, but overlooks the fact that the English clubs exhaust their players and that their Premiership is over-rated. That Woodward has succeeded in fashioning an English side which now rubs shoulders with the Southern Hemisphere heavyweights is due largely to the professional back-up and financial resources which the RFU have pumped into team England and the security of tenure they've afforded Woodward.
The English coach has developed England's skill levels, defence and cohesion, daringly selecting big, fit, athletic, pacey ball-carrying players from one to 15, infusing the team with a host of individual talents such as Jason Robinson and Austin Healey, and rather than apply a patterned approach has given them the licence to call it as they see it. It's as much despite the English club system than because of it.
It's not by any means cast in stone that they'll beat all three. Woodward seems intent on utilising the bulk of the 30-man squad he's picked for these matches, while John Mitchell has made what looks like a smart call by leaving his front line players back in New Zealand, giving them an additional month's off-season to recover from injuries and have a good pre-season in advance of World Cup year.
New Zealand's depth of players is still probably unequalled, and their "seconds" would be better than most firsts. Though he has left the Canterbury contingent at home, Mitchell has still picked mostly in-form players from Auckland and Waikato, and they'll be straining at the leash knowing that a few of them will launch their World Cup breakthroughs here and now.
The Springboks will be interesting. Rudi Straeuli has blooded a crop of young players in moulding a mobile and expansive side which, as anyone who witnessed the recent Currie Cup final can testify, still goes against the South African grain.
Australia don't have New Zealand's or South Africa's depth, but without the same provincial demands can limit their front line players to about 25 games a season, so they'll be the best prepared of the three. After five weeks without a game, they'll be glad of only their fourth win in Buenos Aires on Saturday, even if it was a bruising, soporific, penalty-ridden affair in which Felipe Contepomi missed 21 points in kicks.
Ireland cannot be expected to beat the Wallabies after 11 successive defeats to them, but still should be the best prepared of the European sides after almost nine weeks in various camps together. By comparison, the French only came together this week in advance of playing the Boks in Marseilles next Saturday night.
Nonetheless, the Irish rugby public can rightly hope for at least a good performance and clear signs of an improving work in progress. That, after all, is mostly what these games are about.
