No one has a monopoly on anguish.
Scotland’s heart-breaking defeat to Australia extinguished the last ember of hope for the European teams at this year’s Rugby World Cup.
Despite hosting it, England were out after just three games –Â while Wales suffered an agonising defeat at the hands of South Africa.
And then there was Ireland.
Fans of Six Nations rugby are hardly tempted to switch off now rather than watch a semi-final block consisting of the four teams from the Rugby Championship, but just in case you were contemplating it we’ve come up with some good reasons to keep watching the Rugby World Cup.
There will be tries
As much as we may hate to admit it, southern hemisphere rugby is miles ahead of the European stuff in terms of attacking creativity. Sure, defensive showdowns can make for exciting rugby but we have that every week in cthe PRO12.
Remember the last day of the Six Nations? Remember how fun it was to see everyone throwing the ball around with reckless abandon in the highest-scoring gameweek in the history of the tournament?
That’s what it’s like every week down south. Runners look for the space and when tackled make sublime offloads to keep the play alive. We know change is scary, but give the superior ball-handling skills of the Rugby Championship a chance and you might just find that it’s what you’ve been craving all along.
Scout for the future
With the way things are going at the moment, more and more southern hemisphere stars are going to come up north in search of a big payday, and you’ll be ahead of the game if you can just pay attention for four more games.
Youngsters like Jesse Kriel and Nehe Milner-Skudder are generational talents, so you better start putting pressure on your province to sign them now. Or maybe focus on someone more immediately available, like Austrlian flanker David Pocock or Springbok lock Eben Etzebeth – whose contracts both expire next year.
Even scouting on a wider level, the southern hemisphere teams have always been the great innovators in terms of play. If you want to see how the Six Nations teams will try to play in three years’ time, just watch the semi-finals this weekend.
Who wouldn’t like to see Julian Savea playing in their colours next year?
Curse the one who wronged you
The only thing more patriotic than cheering on your country at a major tournament is cheering against the team that knocked your team out of said major tournament.
So if you’re Scottish, adopt Argentina as your new native country and throw something heavy at the screen every time Craig Joubert has the audacity to show his face. If you’re Irish, reach out to the thousands of people you undoubtedly know who have emigrated to Australia for the best tips on supporting the Wallabies.
For the Welsh, just follow the lead of your Kiwi coach and cheer on the All-Blacks against South Africa, while English fans should cheer against both New Zealand and Australia because they’ll never hear the end of it if either of those two lift the William Webb Ellis trophy on English soil (again).
Although, for us Irish, it’s hard not to have a begrudging respect for Los Pumas. C’mon the Argies!
Everyone* supporting Argentina now as the only Western Hemisphere side left, yes? *except those east of Greenwich #geographybasedrugbyfans
— Phil Agius (@philagius) October 19, 2015
