Scotland hooker George Turner to team up with former coach in Japan

Look at the way Tom Willis played on Saturday for exactly what the Lions are missing for me. From a standing start, close quarter work, he was beating the first man and still making yards when the other defenders got to him. Also got at least one turnover. Theres no-one doing this for the Lions.

Nobody is have a really good tour. For every one or two things done well theres at least one poor mistake.

Hence a 6N or a WC game would be an event far above the rest and it’s still showing in the media. Some people do know that WR rankings are at stake now, but most don’t or even care about that.

It’s like the Lions tours: there is absolutely zero hype for the Lions and 99% of the French public doesn’t even know what the “Lions” are; it’s too unrelated to any French rugby tradition. Personnally, I haven’t ever watched a single minute of a Lions game of the last 50 years and just read today that Kinghorn was injured, which is another blow for Toulouse.

Australia easily learned from NZs mistakes in the final the following week.

Apart from Australia in 1991 (no SA), no team has beaten NZ in a knock out before a final and not lost the following match.

Historicaly, and this is true since I can remember, almost every French rugby supporter (unless some random kiwi stole them a girlfriend/boyfriend in the past) is also an All Black supporter. In fact, French rugby has always aimed at playing rugby like the AB with a French touch, certainly not like England or South Africa.

But it doesn’t impact much “the general public” incentive to watch any summer tour in New-Zealand, as those large audiences are certainly built on a different public profile than hardcore rugby supporters. In fact, all this criticism of the French system is mostly alienating people who are basically supportive of NZ rugby, while the very large population… just doesn’t care.

I’m even wondering that with players’ welfare (again), with tackling lower and lower, these kind of brutal guys might be a disadvantage, as some of them have less tackling skills. Whereas the lighter profiles learned to be smarter in their tackles, hence a better skillset.

EggChasers quickly covered that subject in his top positions videos, but I think that could be an interesting article: the role of the 12.

Broadcasters are certainly not fools and are making plenty of marketing studies to back up their offers; so, tell me please, why no offer in France for such a major event? - (answer: low expected audience = not a major event)

In fine, this series ends up as a gift to the very expensive channel who was already broadcasting Top 14. Canal Plus also scored 920.000 viewers for the Top 14 final on 28 June. In addition to 4.2 million viewers on Antenne 2 (the final is always free to air), those 5.1 million viewers are not bad for the 188th episode of the 2025 series when most missed the last 187 (actually it’s a record for a championship final).

Also, can you tell me what was the audience in New Zeland for last november FRA-NZ game and if it’s possible to compare it with last saturday? I’m pretty sure there would also be a big difference between home and away games, due to different time zone and level of media coverage - ie: this manufactured outrage about the French selection.

Another clue: I can’t find anywhere how many viewers in France watched last saturday game on Canal Plus… nobody published it.

As for SA test next November, I do believe that it would probably score below the AB, we’ll see.