Two years out from the 2027 World Cup, at the midway point of the 2025 Rugby Championship, with the 2025 Lions tour still fresh in the memory, and the autumn internationals on the near horizon, provides an ideal confluence of datelines to pick a World XV.

It heralds the advent of a World XV which is no longer the main preserve of South Africa and New Zealand, international rugby union’s pre-eminent playing nations for decades.
This is because signs that the old order of Springbok-All Black supremacy is being challenged are growing, as a handful of nations, including France, Argentina, Irela...