Peter Bills: Southern win confirms dearth of northern talent

Bryan Habana thrived under Barbarian coach Nick Mallett's style. Photo / Getty Images

So just what is it about the Barbarians with the All Blacks? I mean, can't these guys put their champagne glasses down and stop celebrating after dining out for 36 years on one victory?

A second Barbarians win on Saturday over a New Zealand touring team, induced similarly exultant celebrations on the pitch, this time at Twickenham.

But this was a different scenario to 1973 and it spoke volumes about the decline in Northern Hemisphere rugby. Thirty-six years ago, when the Barbarians achieved that immortal 23-11 win at Cardiff over Ian Kirkpatrick's side, all 15 players in the Barbarians starting line-up were from the British Isles and Ireland.

On Saturday, the Barbarians had just one such representative, Welsh centre Jamie Roberts. To beat a New Zealand 2nd XV, the Barbarians had to cram their side full of South Africans, Australians, a couple of Italians and one rogue Kiwi, wing Joe Rokocoko.

Coached by Nick Mallett, a South African now in charge of Italy, the Barbarians merely confirmed that just about all the real talent in world rugby currently lies in the Southern Hemisphere. For the Barbarians to be so hellbent on stacking their team with Southern Hemisphere players told you everything about their mania to beat New Zealand and a lot about the lack of real class alternatives in British and Irish rugby.

True, Ireland would have contributed a few, had their top men been available. But the IRFU has more sense than that; they want to protect their best players, like Brian O'Driscoll, Rob Kearney, Paul O'Connell, Jamie Heaslip and Tommy Bowe.

So yesterday morning in the rain before a 63,000 audience at Twickenham, became almost an exclusively Southern Hemisphere affair. And in one sense it was quite revealing, certainly from a South African perspective. Freed from the yoke of Peter de Villiers' straightjacket coaching, the South African players not only looked like they were enjoying themselves hugely but also playing far better than they'd ever managed on their dismal end-of-season tour of the Northern Hemisphere.

Schalk Burger was suddenly reinvigorated and looked a whole lot more effective while Bryan Habana appeared revolutionised by Mallett's coaching style. Habana was the difference between a New Zealand win and defeat; his three tries turned the game. He played with a smile on his face, got his hands on the ball frequently, got involved as often as possible and again looked the lethal finisher the Springboks have tried hard to persuade us he no longer is.

But if there were harsh lessons for Northern Hemisphere rugby from this game, then the New Zealand selectors surely won't have failed to draw their own conclusions, either. Seven days after that momentous win in Marseille over France, the best single test rugby performance of 2009 by a country mile, Graham Henry and his coaches won't have failed to see the vast chasm in class that has opened up within this New Zealand squad.

With the top players on display, New Zealand have looked in a class of their own on this tour. But with the next tier on show, it has been a very different story. Perhaps that can be explained in part by the fact that many of those who started on Saturday have played very little rugby on this tour in a match context. On Saturday's evidence, for whatever reason, they have not been able to make the progress for which Henry and his colleagues would have hoped.

What it leads us to conclude is that a full-strength All Blacks side remains a potent unit and, as shown in France, far too much for many opponents.

Unless the back-up players can make startling progress in next year's Super 14, it appears that the All Blacks are going to have to go into the 2011 Rugby World Cup pretty much with the squad that crushed the French, plus, in all probability, some returning old favourites such as Carl Hayman, Ali Williams and maybe Nick Evans.

That lack of pressure for places is a genuine concern. Still, how close to victory would an all-British and Irish side been on Saturday? In all likelihood, a long way off.

This end-of-year international programme has revealed the poverty of the game in the Northern Hemisphere, Ireland excepted. And with the next World Cup now less than two years away that is a major worry for the individual countries involved.

* Peter Bills is a rugby writer for Independent News & Media in London