Connect with us

International Rugby

Even with Ireland’s autumn win, Northern Hemisphere still playing catch up with All Blacks, says Lawrence Dallaglio

The Wasps, England and Lions legend argues New Zealand are still clear favourites for the Rugby World Cup

LAWRENCE Dallaglio fears the present battle for supremacy has demonstrated that Northern Hemisphere teams are still flagging behind their Southern rivals in the tactical department.

And, he believes, unless one of them can devise a successful Plan B, England, Wales, and Scotland will fly back home from later this year empty handed.

Dallaglio insists that, having watched the home nations and in action over the last few weeks, he is left with a feeling of concern and disappointment.

That is especially after the way ‘ side were unable to avoid a rapid second half fall from grace at the Principality Stadium.

The winner, below, claims: “In my eyes, New Zealand are still without doubt the favourites to lift the World Cup… even though they lost to the Irish recently. They have won the last two and are going for an unprecedented third in a row.

“What this Six Nations has highlighted so far is that tactically a lot of the sides are still behind the Southern Hemisphere giants, particularly the All Blacks.

“Wales be unbeaten but really and truly England should have beaten them if they had the ability to go to Plan B. It was very disappointing that they had no answer for when things started going wrong.”

Aaron Smith
Travel in numbers: were the last team to beat Wales in Cardiff in 2017’s international. Photo: Michael Steele/Getty Images

New Zealand were the last team to beat Wales in Cardiff and Dallaglio says for England to have done it a fortnight ago it would have been another huge statement for Eddie Jones’ team in the build up to the World Cup.

“Wales were trying to play too much and getting absolutely thumped by the England defence,” he added. “They then got the hair dryer from Warren Gatland at half-time and changed to kicking the ball and testing England to see if they could play out of their half instead.

“Ireland came unstuck in that first game against an England team which controlled the field position and were able to keep the defensive pressure up for virtually 80 minutes and Ireland could do nothing about changing things.

“But then when England needed to alter their tactical approach in Cardiff they too came unstuck, unable to come up with a Plan B to counter what they Welsh were doing.

“They just kept kicking the ball to Wales and Liam Williams kept catching it. They never changed the way they were thinking or doing things when they needed to switch the way they were playing. That showed me that New Zealand are still favourites to lift the trophy.”

GARY FITZGERALD / Photo: Getty Images

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

 

Tackle the News

- Sign Up for our weekly Rugby Newsletter
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Your subscription has been successful.

The Rugby Paper

Stadium Solutions

Arg v SA

Collinson Tensile

Taurus TapeLifting Giants

One Year To Go

Stadium Solutions

The best betting sites

Globusbet

£10 MINIMUM DEPOSIT CASINOSonline-casinos-nz-banner

Betzillion UKGGBet

free bets

More in International Rugby