And with that, we were on to Round 2 of the 2019 Rugby Championship as the action moves towards a much more Australian friendly time zone.
The All Blacks continue their procession to another trophy first up when they take on the Springboks in Wellington, although giving others some hope, the South Africans did spring an upset there last year.
Both of those sides will be very eager to back up their first round wins and get some sort of confidence ahead of their Rugby World Cup opener against each other in just under two months time.
As for the two sides rebounding from first up losses, the Wallabies and Pumas will be in Brisbane but it’s hard to have too much confidence in the hosts after another disjointed performance last week.
You can find more insight into the two games this weekend plus our recommended betting plays right below this line of text.
It’s not exactly going out on a limb to suggest the All Blacks are going to be vastly improved compared to their lacklustre effort in Argentina. For starters, Buenos Aires is a tough place to play and secondly, it was a group of fringe players who may or may not be involved in the World Cup. A handful of top line players were left behind with one eye on keeping the players fresh. Considering the All Blacks have lost a grand total of two home tests this decade, it’s certainly not out of the question to expect them to win this one and I’m happy to back them for a big victory here.
Look, it wasn’t a great trip to South Africa for the Wallabies, going down by 18 points with several all too familiar errors creeping into their game. They will need to be much better this weekend against an Argentine side that has improved drastically in the last six years. On their last trip to Australia as a national team, they pulled off a huge upset on the Gold Coast thanks in no small part to Israel Folau bombing a chance on full time by completely ignoring teammates and going for personal glory… and perhaps in turn foreshadowing some other stuff. Anyway as for this game I’m happy to back an improved performance from the Wallabies and the fact Argentina will be without their leader Augustin Creevy gives me a bit more confidence. I doubt it will be a big win, in fact it might be a win that feels a bit hollow but either way, Australia should get some sort of tangible benefit from this game.