Gavin Rich's wide-ranging column uses the Nations Championship's first phase as a lens to make several sharp arguments. The headline claim: the RWC 2027 draw is structurally broken. With South Africa, New Zealand and France emerging as a clear top three — all unbeaten or near-so, with Ireland and England well behind them in real terms — the current draw means those three powers will eliminate each other in the quarters and semis while Australia, England and Argentina cruise to a fresher final berth. Rich calls it what it is: idiotic, and a betrayal of everything teams were told about the importance of finishing high on the rankings.
On the Championship itself, Rich is measured but critical. The travel demands are genuinely brutal — England crossed the equator four times in three weeks — and the fiction of 'home' games played in Cardiff, Liverpool and Santiago hollows out the competition's credibility. He also takes a pointed swipe at Borthwick for refusing to rotate or experiment even against Fiji, contrasting that timidity directly with Erasmus's deliberate squad-building for the longer game. The 22 August Ellis Park clash between the Boks and All Blacks looms over everything, with Rich's view being that no team truly knows how to handle Bok physicality until they're in it — and New Zealand's confidence, while real, is still untested against that particular wall.