Northern exposure: Rugby’s great divide laid bare

Fourie du Preez of South Africa scores a try. (Rex)

A tumultuous weekend of rugby has produced four World Cup semi-finalists who are all from the southern hemisphere – South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, and Australia. The exiting from the competition of Wales, France, Ireland, and Scotland – coming after England failed to make it out of the group stage – is salutary. In eight rugby World Cups going back to the inaugural tournament in 1987, there was never until this one a semi-final line-up that did not include at least one northern hemisphere side.

Much soul-searching will ensue. For England it has already been going on for a fortnight, and it remains to be seen if the team’s coach, Stuart Lancaster, has a future in the job. After being humiliated by New Zealand on Saturday, France are arguably in an even worse position. Emphatically defeated by Argentina, Ireland too have much to ponder, while Wales’s coach Warren Gatland, declared after his team had been knocked out by South Africa that “in the end, we were not good enough”. Of the European nations, only Scotland, cruelly thwarted by Australia in the closing moments of an epic encounter at Twickenham yesterday, can go home with some sense of achievement and their pride intact.

The wider picture is of a superbly organised tournament full of enthralling rugby, matches contested at a pitch of intensity that lifts the sport on to the highest plane. There’s a lot of emphasis placed on the sheer physicality of top-level rugby – the almost freakish nature of the modern player’s build, the cult of the “big hit”. Rugby’s gladiatorial aspect is at the heart of its appeal – enshrined as it is in the All Blacks’ haka – but there’s a tendency for the sublime skills involved to be overlooked. No other sport can offer quite the same combination of, on the one hand, brute power, and on the other, exquisite finesse. And while some of the margins have been very narrow, it’s clear that the southern hemisphere are enjoying a greater superiority over their northern rivals than ever.