Rugby365's Wynona Louw takes stock of the inaugural Nations Championship's Southern Hemisphere leg and lands on clear verdicts across the board. South Africa are the standout winners — unbeaten across three Tests, topping the combined log on points difference over New Zealand, and deploying 43 players in the process. The depth-building exercise came without sacrificing results: 130 points scored, 20 tries, and a 40-point average. Louw also flags the broader milestones — Erasmus's record 55th Test as head coach, the Boks' clean sweep of all Rugby Championship and Six Nations opponents inside 12 months, and an 11-match unbeaten run that now stretches back to Auckland in September 2025. Other winners include France (impressive away from Europe), New Zealand (Will Jordan's try-scoring record), and Japan — whose first-ever tier-one tournament win over Italy is treated as a genuine landmark.
The losers are equally clear-cut. Italy's Six Nations form evaporated entirely — three losses, including to Japan and a 57-10 demolition by a Wallabies side that had won once all campaign. Fiji's failure to register a win despite their talent pool draws scrutiny, with Louw noting their disadvantage of playing 'home' matches across Cardiff, Liverpool, and Edinburgh. The sharpest criticism, though, is reserved for the scheduling that placed Japan's home fixture in New South Wales — a decision Louw argues undermines the entire competitive premise of the tournament. England's sin-bin record (14 yellow cards in eight 2026 Tests) gets a raised eyebrow too.