The All Black elephant in the room

[Lizard]

Although the focus (rightly) is on the impending 6 Nations, everyone knows that the real challenge for #2 ranked England is to topple the All Blacks.

it sounds as though for Eddie Jones that means beating NZ at RWC2019 (https://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/int ... jones-says) although there's no guarantee the teams will meet at the tournament (they cannot meet until the semis at least).

What would you consider to be enough to claim that England are generally better than the All Blacks?

Any win e.g. in November? (Achieved 7 times, most recently in 2012*)
A win of a particular magnitude? (Biggest win ever was by 17 points, in 2012. Only one other by 10+ was in 1936)
Beating the All Blacks at a RWC? (Never happened. Best result 12-18 at RWC1991)
Beating the All Blacks 2 or more times consecutively? (Achieved only once in 2002-03)
Finishing higher than the All Blacks at RWC2019 whether or not you play them? (achieved in: 1991 Eng 2nd, NZ 3rd; 2003 Eng 1st, NZ 3rd; 2007 Eng 2nd, NZ 5th=)
Gaining the #1 spot in the rankings (I think this is likely if England beat NZ at RWC2019)? (last achieved 2004)
Gaining the #1 spot for a certain period of time? (had a decent run 2003-04)
Winning the Raeburn Shield? (England are current holders since 18 November 2017)

*OK, it was on 1 December but you know what I mean

[Puja]

I'd say nothing in November would allow us to claim we're generally better than NZ - you've been clearly no 1 for a while and any one-off victory would be just that.

However, a win would obviously be a good start and would begin creating doubt about the matter. Personally, I'm a fan of the rankings - we'd be number 1 if we can take and hold that rankings spot.

Puja

[Gloskarlos]

to make us feel like we are generally better that the AB we would need to win with a performance that suggests the AB have been outplayed, rather than a ground out victory, and that the performance could be re-produced at will (like the AB's do) which I guess is what Puja is saying about being ranked #1

[twitchy]

Ireland are comfortably the best team in europe.

[Peej]

To be #1 I think England would need to believe they were #1, and that would only really come by beating NZ in November but then backing that up and doing so again at the RWC, when it really mattered. You beat someone twice in a row and then that allows you to start making claims about being better than them.

[Timbo]

Unless New Zealand start to haemorrhage key members of their starting 15 to Europe before the next World Cup I can’t see anybody overtaking them. But England and Ireland are certainly capable of putting themselves in a position that on any given day, if the AB’s aren’t quite at their best, they can turn them over.

Also, the Lions showed that you don’t have to play remarkable rugby to challenge them. Before that series the received wisdom was that the AB’s always score 25+ points and that to beat them you had to score loads of try’s.

[fivepointer]

Sustained success is the only route to being #1.

That means beating NZ more than they beat us over a WC cycle. A win in November would be a very nice place to start.

[Timbo]

Ireland are comfortably the best team in europe.

For that to be the case they need to significantly improve their away form (Soldier Field was in front of 60’000 Irish fans, so...). Since the last World Cup they’ve lost 4 from 5 away from home in the 6Nations, only beating Italy, and lost an away series to a very poor Bok team.

In front of their own fans they are pretty formidable.

[Digby]

For England to claim they're better than NZ at the current time I think they'd need back to back series wins in NZ, obviously even then NZ are the #1 team in the sport's history, but away wins over NZ would give an England team who managed it a reasonable claim of superiority (for however brief a period)

[Stom]

I honestly don't think much of this NZ team. Of course, they're still better than the rest, but not by a lot any more.

Unless Ireland put together a good run of results, not just one offs, I don't see them challenging the #1 spot.

[Oakboy]

It's a case of being confident of a win, not 'giantkiller' hopeful. No English fan is likely to be anywhere near that in the near future, IMO. We simply don't have enough world class players yet. Even a sneaked RWC win would not change anything. In RWC cycle terms, I doubt we can get there until about this stage next time.

[Puja]

For England to claim they're better than NZ at the current time I think they'd need back to back series wins in NZ, obviously even then NZ are the #1 team in the sport's history, but away wins over NZ would give an England team who managed it a reasonable claim of superiority (for however brief a period)

Two away series!? Surely that's more than a little bit over the top?

Back to back test wins vs NZ in any venue would surely be enough to give us a reasonable claim of superiority, even if not a very permanent one. It would certainly mean that they couldn't have a particularly strong claim to being better than us anymore.

Puja

[Digby]

For England to claim they're better than NZ at the current time I think they'd need back to back series wins in NZ, obviously even then NZ are the #1 team in the sport's history, but away wins over NZ would give an England team who managed it a reasonable claim of superiority (for however brief a period)

Two away series!? Surely that's more than a little bit over the top?

Back to back test wins vs NZ in any venue would surely be enough to give us a reasonable claim of superiority, even if not a very permanent one. It would certainly mean that they couldn't have a particularly strong claim to being better than us anymore.

Puja

Either you win consistently or you're competitive with rather than better than.

[Stom]

For England to claim they're better than NZ at the current time I think they'd need back to back series wins in NZ, obviously even then NZ are the #1 team in the sport's history, but away wins over NZ would give an England team who managed it a reasonable claim of superiority (for however brief a period)

Two away series!? Surely that's more than a little bit over the top?

Back to back test wins vs NZ in any venue would surely be enough to give us a reasonable claim of superiority, even if not a very permanent one. It would certainly mean that they couldn't have a particularly strong claim to being better than us anymore.

Puja

Either you win consistently or you're competitive with rather than better than.

We tour NZ what, every 5 years? So you're saying that we could be better than them for 4 years, but lose one series and they're still the better team?

Yeah, nope.

If we consistently beat them, anywhere, including a series win in NZ, then we can say we're better. 5 years is pretty much 2 different teams most of the time, too. Many players will have left the set up by then and 2 World Cups will have gone.

[I R Geech]

Where's Rowan when you need him?

[Digby]

Two away series!? Surely that's more than a little bit over the top?

Back to back test wins vs NZ in any venue would surely be enough to give us a reasonable claim of superiority, even if not a very permanent one. It would certainly mean that they couldn't have a particularly strong claim to being better than us anymore.

Puja

Either you win consistently or you're competitive with rather than better than.

We tour NZ what, every 5 years? So you're saying that we could be better than them for 4 years, but lose one series and they're still the better team?

Yeah, nope.

If we consistently beat them, anywhere, including a series win in NZ, then we can say we're better. 5 years is pretty much 2 different teams most of the time, too. Many players will have left the set up by then and 2 World Cups will have gone.

I suppose we're too busy repeat touring Australia and SA to get over to NZ more often. If we're not playing them often enough we're likely to fall into a position of being competitive with rather than better than, even if we do win the game/series every 4 years or so, though if the respective records against other teams skewed our way additional to beating NZ when we played them that might be enough to claim we were better.

Take maybe our recent record with Ireland, it's 50/50 in the last 4 games, so I don't see the result this 6N no matter how it goes suggesting one team has reached an ascendancy over the other, if however the next winner wins the game this 6N and the next 2-3 games so they're winning and winning home and away then they could make such claim.

Why you'd want to claim you were better I don't know, it's just setting yourself up for the fall. For me I'd simply say I was pleased with the results but was still hoping to see an improvement in performance, but that's a different thing to the question asked.

[Puja]

Either you win consistently or you're competitive with rather than better than.

We tour NZ what, every 5 years? So you're saying that we could be better than them for 4 years, but lose one series and they're still the better team?

Yeah, nope.

If we consistently beat them, anywhere, including a series win in NZ, then we can say we're better. 5 years is pretty much 2 different teams most of the time, too. Many players will have left the set up by then and 2 World Cups will have gone.

I suppose we're too busy repeat touring Australia and SA to get over to NZ more often. If we're not playing them often enough we're likely to fall into a position of being competitive with rather than better than, even if we do win the game/series every 4 years or so, though if the respective records against other teams skewed our way additional to beating NZ when we played them that might be enough to claim we were better.

Take maybe our recent record with Ireland, it's 50/50 in the last 4 games, so I don't see the result this 6N no matter how it goes suggesting one team has reached an ascendancy over the other, if however the next winner wins the game this 6N and the next 2-3 games so they're winning and winning home and away then they could make such claim.

Why you'd want to claim you were better I don't know, it's just setting yourself up for the fall. For me I'd simply say I was pleased with the results but was still hoping to see an improvement in performance, but that's a different thing to the question asked.

See, I would say that, if Ireland win this 6N, they could reasonably say they were better than us. Won the last two games, home and away - we'd have a hard time arguing otherwise, especially if they were ahead of us in the rankings.

It wouldn't make them insuperable, but they would be able to claim to be currently better.

Puja

[Timbo]

We tour NZ what, every 5 years? So you're saying that we could be better than them for 4 years, but lose one series and they're still the better team?

Yeah, nope.

If we consistently beat them, anywhere, including a series win in NZ, then we can say we're better. 5 years is pretty much 2 different teams most of the time, too. Many players will have left the set up by then and 2 World Cups will have gone.

I suppose we're too busy repeat touring Australia and SA to get over to NZ more often. If we're not playing them often enough we're likely to fall into a position of being competitive with rather than better than, even if we do win the game/series every 4 years or so, though if the respective records against other teams skewed our way additional to beating NZ when we played them that might be enough to claim we were better.

Take maybe our recent record with Ireland, it's 50/50 in the last 4 games, so I don't see the result this 6N no matter how it goes suggesting one team has reached an ascendancy over the other, if however the next winner wins the game this 6N and the next 2-3 games so they're winning and winning home and away then they could make such claim.

Why you'd want to claim you were better I don't know, it's just setting yourself up for the fall. For me I'd simply say I was pleased with the results but was still hoping to see an improvement in performance, but that's a different thing to the question asked.

See, I would say that, if Ireland win this 6N, they could reasonably say they were better than us. Won the last two games, home and away - we'd have a hard time arguing otherwise, especially if they were ahead of us in the rankings.

It wouldn't make them insuperable, but they would be able to claim to be currently better.

Puja

They could win the 6N but lose at Twickenham.

If NZ manage to keep, say, their top 35 players in the country over the next 5/6 years I genuinely can’t see anyone overtaking them. Best case is you could get to somewhere close to their level and develop a style and a mindset that they struggle with imo.

[Digby]

See, I would say that, if Ireland win this 6N, they could reasonably say they were better than us. Won the last two games, home and away - we'd have a hard time arguing otherwise, especially if they were ahead of us in the rankings.

It wouldn't make them insuperable, but they would be able to claim to be currently better.

Puja

Others will of course have a different view. Maybe if they trounce us it'd at some weight to such claim for me, given the last win was by 4 points even if they win at HQ I'd want to see more continued success before thinking they were better rather than merely competitive with

[Digby]

Our record Vs NZ in the last 15 games sees us having won once I think, and that when they had gastroenteritis. That's dominance, and a good number of those games they've won by 20+ and even 30+

[Puja]

Our record Vs NZ in the last 15 games sees us having won once I think, and that when they had gastroenteritis. That's dominance, and a good number of those games they've won by 20+ and even 30+

See, I think that's where our disconnect is happening. No-one is asking about "dominance" (which I would agree fits your criteria). The question on the table is simply "better than" which has a much lower burden of proof. It's basically the point at which you would look at a match-up and say that England are favourites, even if only slightly.

Puja

[Digby]

Our record Vs NZ in the last 15 games sees us having won once I think, and that when they had gastroenteritis. That's dominance, and a good number of those games they've won by 20+ and even 30+

See, I think that's where our disconnect is happening. No-one is asking about "dominance" (which I would agree fits your criteria). The question on the table is simply "better than" which has a much lower burden of proof. It's basically the point at which you would look at a match-up and say that England are favourites, even if only slightly.

Puja

I don't think there's a disconnect, instead we have a different take on what being generally better means, you quite reasonably think one team can have shown they've an ascendancy whilst I may think, still reasonably, they're still perhaps of a similar ilk

[Which Tyler]

Beat them twice, at least once comfortably, AND hold the #1 ranking spot by more than the home-advantage allowance (2 points?).
Until then we're "competitive with" at best.


Of course, for the English media to declare us the best in the world, we need to win 4 from 5 in the 6N and retain a top 3 ranking

[Timbo]

Of course, for the English media to declare us the best in the world, we need to win 4 from 5 in the 6N and retain a top 3 ranking

I think we’re over the ‘building them up’ cycle that the media like, now they seem to be poised for a ‘any excuse to tear them down’ phase.

[Banquo]

I honestly don't think much of this NZ team. Of course, they're still better than the rest, but not by a lot any more.

Unless Ireland put together a good run of results, not just one offs, I don't see them challenging the #1 spot.

The best response yet to Lizard's fushing trip!