Zinzan Brooke column

By Zinzan Brooke All Blacks legend

Doug Howlett scored a hat-trick of tries as the All Blacks crushed Italy

New Zealand, Australia and South Africa will all be happy with their opening efforts at the World Cup, and Argentina made it a great weekend for the southern hemisphere by beating France.

In contrast, virtually all the northern hemisphere teams struggled and looked disjointed, expect maybe Scotland, but then they were playing Portugal.

There has been a lot of debate about how the minnows would fare and the likelihood of cricket scores, but Ireland's display against Namibia was not exactly crash-hot.

Wales nearly came unstuck in a very big way against Canada, but at least they responded to the challenge of being behind.

And after Stephen Jones and Gareth Thomas came on and made an impact, they ended up thumping them.

As for England... well, what can you say? They were appalling against the USA.

Who was the largely amateur team at the end? There was just no cohesion, no conviction, nothing.

You expect the big nations to run a team like the USA off the park. They shouldn't even be in the game in the last 20 minutes.

The only thing I can put my finger on for all the northern hemisphere teams is that they are only just starting their season really.

Sure, they have been working through the off-season and have had warm-up games but they have been a bit forced - they wouldn't normally be playing in August.

Mentally and physically the southern hemisphere teams are in the right state, whereas the northern hemisphere teams are almost coming off their holidays

New Zealand, Australia and South Africa have had the Tri-Nations recently and are still effectively in the middle of their season.

Mentally and physically they are in the right state, whereas the northern hemisphere teams are almost coming off their holidays, doing some hard training and then going straight into a World Cup.

It must be difficult to make that transition and that is perhaps why they have struggled to a certain extent.

Graham Henry would have been reasonably pleased with the All Blacks' victory over Italy on Saturday. It was encouraging at the start of a World Cup campaign but it wasn't that polished and there were a few things to work on.

I don't know whether they were holding things back but they have to try things against Portugal and Scotland, because they won't have another decent hit-out before the quarter-finals.

It is more likely they will come up against France at that stage now after their loss to Argentina, which is not ideal from the All Blacks' point of view.

It was a great opening game, and probably what the World Cup needed - that injection of surprise straightaway, although probably not what the French had in mind.

In previous World Cups, Argentina would have stuck in there for 50 or 60 minutes before the game went away from them.

But they are experienced now - a lot of their players play in France, they know the French players personally, what they are like and how they think, and that gives them confidence to try things.

What highlighted the French frailty for me was that period early in the second half when they battered away at the Argentine line maybe eight or nine times in a row.

But when they weren't gaining any ground, they pushed a few forwards a bit wider and thought they would get through that way, but the Pumas just said: 'You are not coming through this gate.'

606: DEBATE On the whole northern hemisphere teams look way off the pace in terms of technique, fitness and preparation roddersrugbyref

France just didn't seem to be able to work out how to deal with the Argentine tactics and they could have lost by more in the end - they had to be happy with getting a bonus point.

There is a lot of emphasis on their pool game against Ireland now, and that has made life harder for the Irish.

Prior to the World Cup Eddie O'Sullivan must have been thinking 'we need to beat one of them, so let's stay close to France and beat Argentina'. But they know they will probably have to beat both of them now to qualify.

As for England, I just can't see them pulling it out of the fire against South Africa - there is just not enough time now.

England were too lateral against the Americans, throwing wide passes when they needed to straighten it up and put it through the hands. Rugby is a simple game if you do the basics well.

The Boks have got a bit of confidence about them at the moment whereas England are just lacking it completely.

If they lose Phil Vickery with this citing as well they are going to have to find a new captain too. Do they give it back to Lawrence Dallaglio? I don't think Lawrence played well against the Americans but he might be the man for the job on Friday.