Springboks play perfect rugby, All Blacks shut out Scotland, Wallabies allow Pollock to shine

Shaun and Thala review the first weekend of Nations Championship games, which include a big 66-7 win for South Africa over Italy.

We break down the almost perfect rugby the Springboks played in the first half as they got ascendancy in every area. We rave about the performances of Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu and Ethan Hooker. We look forward to the game against France where Rassie Erasmus named largely the same side. While Italy had a lot of injuries and their scrum was fantastic, their performance was still very disappointing.

In the other games, we saw England, New Zealand and Ireland impressing against very disappointing performances from Australia, Scotland and Argentina. We debate the yellow card for Angus Bell on the hip drop tackle, we discuss the significance of the victory for the All Blacks in honour of Logan Cadwallader, their head of security. We discuss Boris Wenger trying to avoid having to play at hooker. In the final two games, France beat Fiji but at the cost of Romain Ntamack’s shoulder, as France are now in a major injury crisis before their game against the Boks. We debate the possibility of Antoine Dupont and Maxine Lucu starting at halfback together. Finally Louis Rees-Zammit impresses, but the Japanese bench makes things tight in a Wales win at Cardiff.