A limited roster of games this weekend, and with most front-line international players away with their squads, a limited number of World Cup hopefuls under the microscope too. That said, there were still some who enhanced/decreased their chances of featuring at next year’s Rugby World Cup in England.
GOING UP
Sonny Bill Williams
New Zealand
Sonny Bill’s return to the 15-man code has been surrounded by typical furore, but against the USA in Chicago he allowed his rugby to do the talking with a 50 minute cameo that included a brace of tries, and reminded us why exactly he has been fast-tracked straight back into the All Blacks squad. An injury brought his afternoon to an early end, but reports would indicate that it’s not too serious.
Sean McMahon
Australia
McMahon made his Wallabies bow at Twickenham, and proved exactly why his rise to test star has been quite so stratospheric with an explosive cameo from the bench, after being introduced in the 18th minute for an injured Scott Higginbotham. As well as finishing a try brilliantly well, he didn’t miss a tackle and also managed to beat a game-high 10 defenders with ball in hand. Given that Higginbotham looks set for a spell on the sidelines, McMahon could see plenty more game time this autumn and push himself into the reckoning for a more regular squad spot.
James Horwill
Australia
Michael Cheika said in the aftermath of the Barbarians game that Horwill was the one forward who had adapted quickest to his new strategy, placing the lock in pole position for a lock spot over the autumn series. It is quite a turnaround for the Queensland man, who was stripped of the captaincy and dropped by Ewen McKenzie in 2011. He has featured intermittently since, but with Cheika singing his praises so vehemently it seems Horwill has a good chance of being a key figure in the squad this time next year.
Dan Evans
Ospreys, Wales
It’s difficult to put a club player in the going up section this week – their international outlook clearly isn’t that rosy, purely by virtue of not being in the national squad and therefore missing the weekend’s games. That said, Evans will not be far off a call-up should there be any injuries if he continues the kind of form that saw him make 97 metres and set up a try in the Ospreys’ gritty win over Connacht at the weekend.
JJ Hanrahan
Munster, Ireland
With Ian Keatley away with the Ireland squad, young Hanrahan might finally get the run of games that many have been calling for him to get anyway. A prodigiously talented player, it was actually his game management and goal-kicking that impressed most at the BT Sport Arms Park on Saturday evening. There is plenty of competition for the Irish fly-half squad berths (Sexton is the only one really guaranteed his place), and indeed Hanrahan’s role in green may well come post-2015, but more displays like this and he’ll certainly be pushed higher on Schmidt’s radar.
GOING DOWN
Remi Tales
Castres, France
Castres dropped back to the foot of the Top 14 table and are in serious danger of following Biarritz and Perpignan out of the ‘previously big teams who can’t cut it anymore’ trap door in the Pro D2. An away loss is hardly that uncommon across the channel, and Tales himself wasn’t the worst player in a Castres shirt by any stretch, but his presence in a team that keeps on losing will be doing himself no favours when it comes to French selection this autumn. In the race with Camille Lopez, he is firmly losing ground.
Adam Jones
Cardiff Blues, Wales
Admittedly, his drop-goal attempt was hilarious, and actually surprisingly close to going over, but a home loss to a severely-depleted Munster side was not what he would have wanted on the road to convincing Warren Gatland that there is still the potential for him to return to the Wales squad for next year’s World Cup. Admittedly Gatland’s focus will be elsewhere at the moment, but it was hardly an all-conquering display from the veteran prop.
Who were you impressed with over the weekend and who do you think played poorly?
By Jamie Hosie
Follow Jamie on Twitter: @jhosie43