North v South - the battle for global supremacy is tighter than ever

The scoreline is emphatic: 9-1 and counting.

When it comes to Rugby World Cups, nine of the 10 have been lifted by southern hemisphere hands.

Only Jonny Wilkinson’s extra-time drop-goal for England in the 2003 final stands between the south and a clean sweep of global glory.

So, a new Test competition pitting one half of the globe against the other will be long-haul, but intrigue-short. Won’t it?

Perhaps not.

The Nations Championship, which begins this weekend, might be a concept arriving at the perfect time.

What is the Nations Championship?

First, a quick recap.

The Nations Championship pits the northern hemisphere teams who compete in the Six Nations – England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, France and Italy – against southern hemisphere giants South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and Argentina, plus invited sides Fiji and Japan.

The geographically observant will note that Japan is actually about 2,500 miles north of the equator, so doesn’t sit in the southern hemisphere. But the sport is rolling with it, somewhat in the spirit of Australia’s participation in Eurovision.

All teams will play each of the six in the opposing hemisphere once, with three rounds of fixtures staged in July and another three in November.

Their results will rank the teams within their own hemisphere, from one to six.

On the final weekend in November, there is a three-day play-off event staged at Allianz Stadium in Twickenham. The sixth-placed team in the northern hemisphere plays off against the equivalent in the southern hemisphere standings and so on, culminating in the two top-ranked sides taking each other on. The winner of that final match is crowned the inaugural Nations Championship winner.

However, there is also a parallel, Ryder-Cup style hemisphere title. The winner of each of the matches on the play-offs weekend will earn one point for their hemisphere, except for the contest between the two top-ranked teams which delivers two.

The first hemisphere to earn four points over the weekend will be crowned winners.

Southern supremacy challenged

For the vast majority of the past 120 years, the southern hemisphere sides have been rugby’s jet set.

They have won nearly 57% of the 1,062 Tests between the two groups over more than 125 years of action.

That win rate has fluctuated over time though.

Initial dominance in Test rugby’s early days weakened with fixtures drying up for South Africa, one of the south’s powerhouse sides, as rugby, fitfully, joined the rest of the world in a boycott of its apartheid political regime.

Fiji and Japan, who played their first Tests against top northern hemisphere teams in 1964 and 1971, struggled for victories in those initial encounters.

However, South Africa’s return to international action and the south’s more ardent adoption of professionalism widened their advantage over the north, with a generational New Zealand side winning more than 91% of their meetings with Six Nations opposition in the first decade of the new millennium.

Things have been tighter in recent years though.

In fact, the decline of two-time world champions Australia and, by their own stratospheric standards, New Zealand, combined with the emergence of Ireland as a genuine superpower, mean the North have shaded an almost 50:50 split of results so far this decade.

In points terms, recent results have been even closer.

When you consider the 134 matches between teams from the two hemisphere groups over the last five years, the average margin of victory is just 0.2 points in favour of the north.

Argentina, Japan and Fiji have all contributed to this era of egality.

For example, Fiji, who average a 20-point losing margin against England across their all-time rivalry, are an average of six points down over their three meetings this decade.

Argentina have beaten Scotland in three of their five meetings over the same period.

Across all their matches against Japan, stretching back to 1993, Wales average a 32-point victory, but all three of last year’s games were nail-biters, finishing with nine points or fewer between the sides.

The stranglehold v the lightning strike

If the two hemispheres have been more closely matched on the scoreboard, there remain some significant tactical differences between them.

Overall there has been a stylistic shift to keeping the ball on the pitch and in the hand in the past couple of years.

Compared to 2021-2023, the average ball-in-play time in a Test has risen by nearly two and a half minutes, with the volume of ball-carrying correspondingly up by 17%.

However, northern hemisphere side kick the ball an average of 80 metres further from open play and make 25 more tackles per game.

The southern hemisphere sides also conform to some age-old stereotypes, recycling the ball 10% faster from rucks and powering their way to 18% more post-contact metres.

Which individual players are likeliest to tilt the title the way of their team – and hemisphere?

With the finals of the United Rugby Championship, England’s Prem, France’s Top 14 and Super Rugby all having taken place over the past two weeks, the world’s best players are coming into the tournament on the back of some high-level domestic rugby.

Data experts Oval Insights’ match ratings, which reflect a player’s net impact on their side’s scoring opportunities, say that the Ireland and Leinster second row Joe McCarthy, with an average rating of 8.5 out of 10 over his five most recent matches in the past 60 days, is the world’s most in-form player.

New Zealand’s Jordie Barrett and England’s Tommy Freeman, who like McCarthy are fresh from lifting club silverware, are second in the standings, with France scrum-half Maxime Lucu and Australia centre Len Ikitau not far behind.

Their form, and the form of every other player involved in the Nations Championship, has been part of Oval Insights’ overall calculations for the tournament.

Simulations of the competition have been created 10,000 times, taking into account a wide variety of factors including squad quality, strength of schedule, and historical results.

The super-computer is predicting the finals weekend will look like this…

…with a combined 60% prospect of the Springboks or All Blacks claiming the spoils, as teams gear up for the first kick-off.

As much as the gap has closed, the Six Nations wannabes still need to upset the odds if they are to trump the southern hemisphere superpowers when it matters.

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