Northern Hemisphere pundits’ overconfidence comes back to bite them

It was quite frustrating last week to see the massive overconfidence of the Northern Hemisphere pundits as they trumpeted their sides ending the Rugby World Cup pool phase on top of their respective pools.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a solid accomplishment from the sides up North as France topped pool A, Ireland pool B, Wales pool C and England pool D.

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But the fact that many pundits then took that as a changing of the guard and confidently claimed that the North would take a four-nil clean sweep in the competition quarterfinals was extremely short sighted and in the end came back to bite them.

The Southern Hemisphere sides came roaring back in style to make it three-one in their favour to once again dominate the World Cup knockouts.

Three of the four semifinals were always going to be extremely tight affairs and could have gone either way, and that proved true over the weekend.

The All Blacks and Springboks both edged Ireland and France respectively in games that went down to the wire, while Argentina arguably produced an upset in beating Wales, who had looked solid at the tournament.

England were the only real expected winners of their last-eight game and they were even pushed the whole way by second tier Fiji in what turned out to be a tight match.

Vocal pundits

Two of the North’s most vocal pundits, Clive Woodward and Matt Dawson, will both likely be pumping up England for this weekend’s semifinal clash against the Springboks.

But after they both backed the North for a quarterfinal clean sweep and ended up with egg on their face, they should probably temper their expectations of England, especially considering that the Boks are heavy favourites for the match.

Dawson in fact would do well to show a bit of humility, as it was before the 2019 World Cup final between the Boks and England that he revealed his personal combined team for the final, featuring only English players and not a single Bok.

This ended up looking laughable after the Boks powered to a massive 32-12 win in the final to lift the title for the third time.

This weekend the Boks and All Blacks will both carry favourites tags into the semifinals, but in knockout rugby anything can happen, so declare a winner at your own risk.