CHRIS HEWETT
GUEST COLUMNIST
Auckland and Rome are rugby poles apart: the Arctic and Antarctic of the Union game, its top and bottom, its alpha and omega. The All Blacks haven't lost any of their 46 Tests at Eden Park stretching back almost 30 years – flabbergasting, considering the quality of opposition they've faced there – while the Azzurri haven't won at Stadio Olimpico since the Caesars.
The true strongholds of the sport have traditionally been found in New Zealand and South Africa, with the Australians boasting an imposing citadel or two during periods of Wallaby ascendancy. But the earth is moving. Johannesburg and Cape Town are not nearly so secure as they once were, while Sydney has turned into a veritable Wendy house.
Meanwhile, there are growing signs of a fortress mentality up north. If we take the last 20 matches at each of rugby's major venues as a measure, London and Dublin stand proudly on the podium of impregnability.
England have won 18 of those Twickenham games and drawn another, against the Scots in a mesmerisingly daft Calcutta Cup contest in 2019. Their sole defeat, against the same cussed opposition last February, could not be dismissed as a blip – Scotland were, and are, better than such a description allows – but France, Australia and South Africa were all beaten in the weeks and months following, which told us something about the difficulties faced by visitors intent on tearing it up in TW2.
It doesn't feel as though it should be like this, for England often seem halfbaked and soft-centred. Yet they are devilishly difficult to beat on their own mudheap, where the Springboks are not the only reigning champions to have had their pants pulled down in recent World Cup cycles.
Are visitors intimidated by the heavy military presence: battalions of fighting personnel unfolding giant flags with ceremonial precision while a colleague skydives into view equipped with a ripcord in one hand, the match ball in the other and the expertise not to mistake one for the other? Probably not. The anthem, then? Er…
In the end, the age-old “home comforts” explanation is the only one that fits, much to the frustration of ground-breaking coaches from both sides of the Equator who have spent donkey's years insisting that the process is all: that it doesn't make a blind bit of difference if you're playing on Planet Zog as long as you do the right things in the right places.
But that's the point. For reasons that would baffle Freud himself, good players are more prone to doing bad things in bad places when the stage they're performing on isn't the one they know best.
Across the Irish Sea, the Aviva Stadium is third in the current rankings, behind Eden Park and Twickers. It's marginal for silver and bronze – Johnny Sexton and company have been burgled just twice in the last 20 – and given the momentum generated in Dublin since the last World Cup, there are few reasons to expect an early change in fortunes.
“The Aviva Stadium is third in the current rankings, behind Eden Park and Twickers”
Strange to relate, the record of the Fair City is matched, precisely, by Christchurch. Which is where the similarity ends, heartbreakingly. The biggest city on the South Island of New Zealand is also the most poignant, for no Test rugby has been played there since 2016, thanks to the loss of Lancaster Park to earthquake damage and the money-driven desire of the All Blacks hierarchy to maximise the assets of major population centres in the north of the country.
One of which, Hamilton, is the latest to present a forbidding face to the world. “Come on if you think you're good enough,” it is saying, having hosted 15 Tests since being added to the roster and been pickpocketed only once, by the Springboks well over a decade ago.
Speaking of the South Africans, they have always divided major international fixtures between the highveld and the coast. For decades, this meant Jo'burg and Cape Town ahead of everywhere else, but Pretoria and, in particular, Port Elizabeth are the places no one should be in a hurry to visit.
The irony of PE's position among the top five least welcoming destinations will not be lost on the disenfranchised sporting folk of the Eastern Cape, for so long the beating heart of the republic's cross-community rugby programme.
Professionalism has never really worked for them – ask the poor souls who followed the Southern Kings down the road to oblivion – yet the number of times the Boks lose there is close to never. The last defeat? By Willie John McBride and his Lions almost half a century ago.
If South Africa should play in Port Elizabeth more often, the Australians would do well to avoid Sydney like the plague. Five wins in 20 makes you wonder why they go there at all, especially as Brisbane, true Wallaby heartland, is just up the highway. Still, that's their problem.
On present trends, London could take top spot some time over the next couple of years if England go through the card at home. But they will still need those pesky All Blacks to break the habit of a lifetime by messing up in Auckland, so don't hold your breath.
