The Rugby Championship is back for 2013. New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and Argentina are going to once again throw themselves into battle, to fight for the honour of being the champion of one of the Southern Hemisphere’s greatest challenges. With that in mind, I bring you my preview for the 2013 Rugby Championship:

Australia, as I’ve indicated previously, have everything to play for, and they will be bringing out the heavy artillery right from the get-go. The Wallabies have the double whammy of not only contesting the Rugby Championship, they’re also trying to get back the Bledisloe Cup, which is a separate trophy played concurrently with the series between New Zealand and Australia. The Wallabies have been stung the last 11 years by a brutal and punishing All Blacks attack. This year they bring back Quade Cooper and bring in Israel Folau, two big names that have massive potential to bust the game and the series wide open. Australia are never an easy beat, and with a new coach and a new focus, they are going to be bigger and badder than ever.

South Africa bring their own range of big names to the table, with equally big men to back it up. Jean De Villiers is a formidable captain and a great leader on field. More than that though, South Africa can lay claim to one Bryan Habana, who not only holds South Africa’s highest number of tries scored, but also the same record in the Rugby Championship last year. Habana is amazingly fast, and has pitted his speed against a cheetah, and recently a British Airways Airbus A380 (incidentally, he beat the plane…yes, you read that correctly). South Africa, thanks to their Super Rugby franchises, have no end of talent to draw from, and will do so. They have yet to really taste victory at this level and will be hungry, and even more so than Australia, have a point to prove.

Argentina are the perennial dark horses of this competition, and rightly so. This is only the second season Argentina has played the championship, but by no means are they rookies. If I’ve not made it clear, I actually have a huge amount of admiration for Los Pumas. These guys are still essentially an amateur team, footing it with the big boys, and making a damn good job of it. Watching Argentina play is kind of like watching Brazil play soccer. They’re playing for more than just a team, they’re playing for a nation, and they’re playing for themselves. They’re playing because they’ve worked hard, made it up through the ranks and have earned their jersey. Most of them these days play in regional competitions offshore, in the UK for example, but many still come from provincial Argentina. When Argentina was in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup they gave a few teams a big shake up with their speed and efficiency, and off the field they won a lot of supporters for their infectious happiness and just flat out being nice guys. Felipe Contemponi, the current captain, is easily one of the nicest guys in Rugby, but then I could probably say that about most of the team.

New Zealand, well, I’ve said that New Zealand needs to evolve, but getting back to basics here, the All Blacks are good, and we know it. They have the depth, they have the players and they’ve been the dominant force in world rugby for some time now. That’s not ego talking….well, okay it probably is, but we are that good. Just today I heard that we’ve cut two of the old guard, most notably Piri Weepu. I love Weepu; I think he’s a great player, but he’s just not got the chops to cut it at this level any more. The time has come, and I commend the selectors for acknowledging this. Hopefully this will lead to more young blood coming into the team, to further strengthen our charge.

My predictions:

New Zealand will ultimately win the series. But they’re going to struggle, and they’re going to have to fight for it. I do believe they’re going to lose at least one game, and I get the feeling it’s going to be one of the Bledisloe games. I think Australia will mount a much stronger challenge this series, I do also think Argentina is going to scare the hell out of everyone this series and I do think they may actually knock one of the big guys off their perch.

The series kicks off August 17th in New Zealand, and I believe ESPN have coverage rights to show the games internationally. This test series is going to be hard fought, in simple terms there will be blood. But it’s also going to be bloody good!

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