Well, apart from the All Blacks v Barbarians match this coming weekend, the northern tours are over for another year. But what do the results say about the current state of world rugby?

The Springboks have limped home to South Africa with an appalling gaggle of results that didn’t prevent them claiming the IRB team of the year award. Sure, they won the Lions series, narrowly, and won the Tri Nations, easily, but they will be bitterly disappointed at losing to Ireland, Saracens and Leicester. Can we read into these tour results too much? I would propose not to.

The Ockers came excruciatingly close to a Grand Slam but it’s a game of inches. They really should have finished off Ireland and Scotland and that’s what can make the difference between a World Cup and a long flight home in a drunken haze. They showed enough promise against Wales to keep their fans faithful though.

The All Blacks only sparked finally against France with a fantastic performance scoring five tries to nil when they’d only managed to muster a try a piece in each game against England, Wales and Italy. It was the game of the season for All Black fans who were disenchanted with early season poor form against France and Italy in NZ and going down 3-0 against the Boks in the TN’s series. To go through Europe, once again, without a try scored against, is pretty damned impressive. That's 640 minutes of rugby without a try against. It's all setting up nicely for another choke in 2011? Perhaps a positive for NZ is that they're winning these tight games while not peaking.

The Argies, who came third in the 2007 RWC, were once again back with their unexciting rugby that garners low scoring shit fights, unlucky not to draw against England and obliterating Scotland 9-6. Fiji and Samoa were probably too cold to do better than they did.

For the European hosts, a good deal of work to be done throughout the Six Nations. At this point, the two teams that beat the Boks might be favoured to compete hardest for the title but if you listen to the Welsh and English coaches, they shouldn’t be counted out either. I must say, the Six Nations is hard to relish as an outsider.

A feature of the 2009 northern tours was the limited availability of tries, especially in the tight games. Improved defensive capabilities and increased strength of players from 1 to 15 has meant that even the lower tier teams are able to put up a solid wall that seems impenetrable. If a side has to string together 15 phases to muscle a ball up field and over the line, they must have superb possession skills. To go that many phases without making a mistake is extremely difficult at that level. The Welsh went 18 phases on Saturday against the Wallabies and didn’t make an inch forwards – there was no penetration. Jonathan Davis’ blood was boiling. Scotland and Italy are not extraordinary teams but both can stay in a game through incredible defensive efforts that frustrate the opposition.

The kick as an attacking weapon is an instrument that every team employs nowadays. Cross field kick-passes, drop kicks and chips behind defences are ways to unlock defences but to see France, a traditionally flairy team with a desire to run the ball, attempt a cross field kick and a drop goal from within 30 and 10 metres respectively, and within the first ten minutes of the match, was a little baffling and disappointing. These tactics are usually employed later in games once the bag of tricks is empty. The Boks also attempted a drop within the first quarter against Ireland through their Dr Spock lookalike, Morne Steyne.

I think it’s a worrying sign when teams attempt drop kicks within the first chapters of a match or use drop kicks as their only tactic. I remember feeling sickened watching Jannie de Beer, the ugliest man ever to play rugby, kick five drop goals to help South Africa beat England in the RWC quarter final in 1999. Despicable.

A trivia question – how many drop goals did young Johnny Wilkinson score in the 2003 RWC? The answer is eight, including three against the French in the semi-final. That match was played in such treacherous conditions that the drop goal may have been the only way to breach the defence of either side. Johnny has a total of 13 drop goals in RWC history while the Warthog himself, De Beer, is a very distant second place with six. Perhaps unsurprisingly, another Englishman holds third place; Rob Andrew with five.

Choosing the Team of the Year award cannot have been easy. Based on a simple win ratio, it’d have to be Ireland, now with 11 matches undefeated (including a draw with Oztraaaaalia). God knows the Irish could do with a boost ahead of 2011. They’ve never played in the RWC semi-finals and they’ll be terribly cross about that as Wales and Scotland have done so once each. In fact, Scotland should have been in the final of 1991 if big Gav hadn’t missed that penalty from plum in front. It breaks my heart to even watch the video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCHMLnC2FeA). Subsequently, England ploughed back down field and Ron Andrew nailed one of his slimey drop goals.

Anyhow, with the eventual IRB Team of the Year losing to two club teams in England, it rams home just how fragile the world order is at the moment. Australia losing to Scotland, Ireland beating the Boks and Wales beating Samoa; has the whole world gone mad?

Player of the Year award went to Richie McCaw amidst protests that he’d only played half a season after sitting out the early home tests in June against France. Supporters of the other strong contenders, Fourie Du Preez and BOD (Brian O’Driscoll) were somewhat bitter about the world’s biggest cheat winning the coveted title. They can all piss off. Only Richie could find a way to cheat them out of that award with his sneaky underhand tactics. King Richie back on the Throne.

The Baba’s will be exciting this weekend although it’s disappointing that only Wales and Italy has committed players to the side from the 6N. The rest of the Babarians team are Australians and Yarpies. Surely these players have seen enough of each other this season? For mine, the most intriguing inclusion is Joe Rokocoko, up against the young fella who may have stolen his spot, Zac Guildford.

Speaking of drunken hazes, it’s reported that Carl Hayman scoffed 60 cans of beer on the long flight home to Auckland from the France World Cup in 2007 – eclipsing the former record held by legendary Aussie cricketer David Boon by 8 cans. According to hooker Andrew Hore, him and Zarg “might have sampled a few”. If any man deserved player of the year, it must be Zarg – the 1000th All Black.

Thank you very hard
Boozer