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Mon 28 Nov 2016 | 01:48
Highlights from Week 4 of the November Tests

19
Comments

After another busy weekend, below are highlight recaps from each main international that took place over the last few days. We've posted the best tries here, but if you missed the matches and want to catch up, you can digest everything below.

While there were plenty of individual talking points, posting all matches in one place like this is probably the easiest way for you to go through them and watch what you want to watch, ignore what you don't.

We'll have specific posts for more of the talking points throughout the week.

Some highlights below are official, short clips, while others are extended, around 15 minutes long.

ITALY 17 - 19 TONGA

Tonga's Tane Takulua sealed a 19-17 victory over Italy in Padua with a last-minute penalty, after earlier converting Siale Piutau's 51st-minute try and slotting three other penalties.

A week after Italy upset South Africa, the Six Nations team came back down to earth with the loss, a big win for travelling Tonga.

SCOTLAND 43 - 16 GEORGIA

Fullback Stuart Hogg scored two stunning tries as Scotland thumped Georgia in an entertaining showing in Kilmarnock. It brought to the end a positive few weeks for Scottish rugby, after a narrow defeat to Australia and a hard earned win over Argentina.

They are now just behind South Africa in the world rankings, so a good showing in the Six Nations could see them overtake the former World Champions.

FRANCE 19 - 24 NEW ZEALAND

France put in a strong performance against New Zealand and could perhaps have come away with a win had they had a bit of luck and were a bit more clinical at key moments in the contest. The All Blacks opened with a beautiful Israel Dagg try, as Beauden Barrett ran the show yet again, later capping things off with an intercept that gave nobody any chance of catching his jet shoes.

The Paris victory was New Zealand's 13th win in 14 matches in 2016.

ENGLAND 27 - 14 ARGENTINA

England lost winger Elliot Daly early in the match but were undeterred as they soldiered to their 13th successive Test win, with one match to come against the Wallabies next weekend.

Despite playing positive, attractive rugby most of the time, Argentina ended their northern hemisphere with three defeats after they lost to Wales, Scotland and England.

IRELAND 27 - 24 AUSTRALIA

Ireland ended their November Tests with another big Southern Hemisphere scalp, as they edged Australia in a thrilling match in Dublin. They are now just two points behind the Wallabies in the Rankings (4th), and have a good chance of overtaking them if they have a strong Six Nations.

Their win - coming from tries by Iain Henderson, Garry Ringrose and Keith Earls - adds to victories this year over South Africa and New Zealand.

WALES 27 - 13 SOUTH AFRICA

Wales beat South Africa for only the third time in their 110 year history of matches, and it never looked in doubt as the struggling Springboks put out a team that featured their most inexperienced backline since 1994.

The contest failed to ignite throughout but a strong performance from Justin Tipiruc helped Wales to a comfortable win. They now overtake South Africa in the World Rankings, moving up to 5th place.

FIJI 38 - 25 JAPAN

Levani Botia scored twice as Fiji beat Japan to end their European tour with a win in the French town of Vannes. The win prevented Japan, who a week ago narrowly missed out on a draw with Wales, from taking 10th place in the world rankings.

Fiji suffered heavy losses to both the Barbarians and England in recent weeks, but turned things around to bounce back with five tries in this hard-fought contest.

No highlights available, so below is the full match

LATEST WORLD RUGBY RANKINGS:

Posted By: Grant Constable

19 Comments

  • felipeg
    1:47 PM 30/11/2016

    Well, they lost to Italy. Who then was defeated by Tonga...

  • jonnyenglish
    9:38 PM 29/11/2016

    As I physically cannot give the Welsh team praise, christ aren't South Africa shit?

  • oliver
    7:00 PM 29/11/2016

    well if they wanted to score another try, why not go into touch? their lineout had been dominating the whole evening. I felt they did not take the French team seriously, to be honest.
    And that's what Guirado says when he mentions the AB players'attitude. He even talked about it with some of them apparently.
    Here's the press conference:

    http://video.rugbyrama.fr/rugby/test-match/2016/france-nouvelle-zelande-guilhem-guirado-regrette-des-all-blacks-chambreurs_vid944676/video.shtml

    (sorry, French only)

  • drg
    5:54 PM 29/11/2016

    I suppose Colombes you could be right, the AB's have been wounded this tour and teams have really shown the AB's to be human. Ireland obviously beat them, second match wasn't a whitewash...the French score was quite tight for a kiwi game...they are probably looking to install some self belief and confidence again..

    Of course they're still winning more than they're losing, but it currently doesn't look as clear cut as before...

  • colombes
    4:34 PM 29/11/2016

    Didn't think All Blacks wanted to disrespect France with this final scrum with a 5 pts lead.
    It was a pride reaction. AB's were dominated and outplayed by France during the majority of the match and they intended to prive they could score another try, despite their lucky tries on the 2nd and the 3rd one.

    France is on the good way despite these 2 narrow defeats. If they can be more clinical and settle a fly-half, the results will change very quickly in their favor. But they should aim the RWC 2019 rather the next 6N, as they will be in the 2nd hat and certainly fall in the group of Nz or Australia..

  • felipeg
    9:31 AM 29/11/2016

    Agreed.
    They lost to the Aussies but should have won (Noves finally said so himself and he's not a "howling with the wolves" kind of guy i think) and they get the best results VS the ABs (not considering chicago). A result that could have been even better with just a bit of luck.
    Had they played VS the Boks, Wales, or the Pumas, they could be way higher in rankings now.
    But maybe it's good that they lost. Their opponents of the six nations can still fool themselves into thinking they should'nt be affraid. I see them fifth in my personnal world rankings now. And not far away from the aussies or ireland. Let's hope they go on like that.

  • drg
    9:14 AM 29/11/2016

    It would have bloody backfired if the French won a penalty and took a quick tap leading to their usual trick - alternative rugby commentary:
    "9 to 10, 10 miss pass to 13, 13 pass to 15 coming into the line, 15 behind the back pop pass to 14 hit back on the angle, 14 to 10, 10 short ball to 11 on the inside, 11 cuts 12, 12 dummy to 10, 12 behind the back pop pass to 7, 7 into contact FIGHT, someone loses a testicle, 10 calls his wife, 14 sends a text to the girlfriend, 15 sends a text to 14's girlfriend, FIGHT, French hooker scores"

  • oliver
    8:23 AM 29/11/2016

    My thoughts on the France-NZ game:

    - Les Bleus have come a long way in one year! Very happy to see them play with flair again. It will pay off in the future and the 6 Nations looks very promising this year. Can't wait! If only we could sort out our fly-half troubles.....

    - How good are NZ? Even though France was playing its heart out, they still won easily, never coming out of second gear it seems.

    - Which brings me to my final point: the AB's might be too dominant for their own good and becoming just as arrogant as their fans/media. I thought the decision to ask for a scrum when they had a penalty right in front of the French posts towards the end of the game showed lack of respect. Guirado, French captain, actually said in a post match interview that he wished the AB's did not mock their adversary, that they don't need that, considering how good they are. Now I know it's a big can of worms to open but when the captain of the opposing team actually says things like that openly, it shows things have gone too far. Like any rugby fan, I love watching the AB's play, but I hope they will be brought back down to earth soon.

  • 10:18 PM 28/11/2016

    I thought Green 7 brought the maul down "collapsing it", even if Gold go to ground it is allowed, so long as the ball is made available. Which it appeared to be, and why you could see the Gold No.9 screaming at the ref.

    In terms of the Pocock one fair call, no maul formed. Still think they turned him in the tackle though. And based on later rulings where Pocock was, was no more of a hindrance than Green players were when Oz were on attack.

  • 9:55 PM 28/11/2016

    Was just looking for inconsistencies in general. Once I started I got carried away as I felt there was a pattern in favour obviously for Ireland in this particular circumstance. Perhaps over zealous? The problem is that each ref rules things differently. Each ref see's things from their unique perspective and thats fine. But it has to be treated the same. There weren't as many crazy calls this week, but it seemed that all 50/50 calls were going in one direction. I found it strange that the Irish were rewarded with penalties for players not rolling away in the first half which helped keep the momentum, and the score board in their favour and the pressure firmly on Oz. Then in the second half when Oz were the ones attacking the Irish were killing the quick ball at the break down by being disruptive(not rolling away etc). And yet Oz were not rewarded or given advantage once? I also found the ruling regarding the rolling maul @ 71:57 strange. I know Oz took it in and if it won't come out it's Irelands ball. But the ref blew it up the second it hit the ground. Oz were making crazy meters, and should have been given the chance to clear it? Or am I wrong in this? And Mise as a Kiwi I can assure you I didn't go in looking to find stuff to make the aussies feel better about losing. ;)

  • im1
    9:32 PM 28/11/2016

    It couldn't be a maul as the second Irish player wasn't bound to the ball carrier

    For the aus maul it was the right call by the ref. Read the laws before commenting

  • 9:23 PM 28/11/2016

    I think the very nature of them being small is kind of the point. They're easily missed, but there is a lot of such calls, and collectively they sway the whole flow of the game. I only really intended to watch the game again for the maul at 71:57 and the 2nd Irish try. But as with the AB-Ireland match the week before there were lots of these inconsistent calls. You say Pocock didn't do enough to get out of the way fine, but then there are 3 examples of the Irish not rolling away and not being penalised in the 2nd half. BTW the way the ref was ruling when a tackle became a maul earlier in the game you might have thought Pocock & Gold 12 had done enough on that front too...

  • mise
    8:45 PM 28/11/2016

    Kiwi in Germany are you looking specifically for cases of AUS being hard done by here or are you looking at all cases of ref mistakes?

  • im1
    6:52 PM 28/11/2016

    Picking out 17 incidents to complain about in a rugby match suggests a level of forensic analysis

    I'm not saying we should put up with inconsistencies now because of incidents in but putting in perspective how minor the incidents you picked up are. The refs may have alot of technology available to them but if they went to the TMO for 17 extra incidents in the game it would still be going on. Also, you have made an absolutely shocking call at 47.52 and that is with a slow mo and 48 hours available to you, so you should be a little more lenient on the ref because suggesting he may have a slight bias.

    47:52 - Green not releasing? Seriously? Pocock makes the tackle and is lying on top of him. Its not even remotely marginal

  • 6:31 PM 28/11/2016

    Are you suggesting historical inconsistencies in the refereeing in past games should mean present inconsistencies should be ignored? I thought we all wanted a fairly ref'd game. Where both teams were treated equally within the law?

    I'd love to say I "forensically analysed" the game however as such things are well beyond me I had to do with watching it live before the ABs game and then watching it again a day later on Youtube. I agree NZ rugby fans are genuinely not "healthy" as they are mad about rugby. And being annoyed with the refereeing in last weekends match I paid close attention to this weekends matches. It was pretty fair between NZ and France I felt, a few small ones here and there for both sides but no huge difference.

    Being frustrated in the past by how people will often bash a team they don't like, or an opposition they just lost to based upon nothing but really how they feel. I'd much rather post an opinion where I've backed it up with more than a feeling. I'm genuinely interested to see if anybody else thinks the ref had a bad night?

    It is surprising that with all the help the ref's get these days, so much extra support in terms of technology & experienced officials(Nigel Owens was on the side lines), that there are so many inconsistencies?

    There is a lot of grey areas in rugby. We all know that. Thats why these boards here fill up with debate over every single issue. But you do want the same thing to be ruled the same way, especially in the same game. Otherwise you have two teams playing by different rules.

  • im1
    5:56 PM 28/11/2016

    00.44 - Umaga and Mealamu spear tackle O'Driscoll of the ball. No punishment at all.

    The general Kiwi reaction to that one was 'get over it,' so I will suggest the same response to all of the above. If you forensically analyse every single part of a game there are always going to be marginal decisions which all of the above are. Its not healthy to either. If you have to do it, at least try and get a job with world rugby so you get paid for it

  • 5:39 PM 28/11/2016

    Just love watching rugby. Watched this game before the AB's. Then watched it again on Youtube.(Only intended on looking at two calls I thought were odd and got carried away! lol) Who uses paper these days?

  • drg
    4:51 PM 28/11/2016

    .....you must have a lot of time and a lot of paper!

  • 4:32 PM 28/11/2016

    "Refereeing"

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