It’s time for our Monday wrap on who has their name in lights and who is making headlines for all the wrong reasons after the weekend.

THEY’RE ON FIRE!

England: One Sunday afternoon can’t eradicate the repeated shortcomings of this underachieving England era under Steve Borthwick, but we’re not going to be buzzkills and will instead apply credit with the tunnel vision of looking at games against the Wallabies in isolation. Two years ago, England were ambushed in London and lost by five (37-42), while last year they exacted revenge with an 18-point win that sounds way more comfortable than it was.

England waited until the 73rd minute of that dull 24-7 affair to score their third try, so the clinical reality of Sunday’s thumping 23-point success should be giddily celebrated. In scoring 45 points, the seven-try English registered their highest tally of points ever against Australia, so it was a victory of genuine merit, especially when you remember the ha’penny place Borthwick occupied 24 months ago when the Wallabies scored their last-minute winner. The handbrake came off the Lee Blackett-coached attack and with Fin Smith looking so composed, England, who conjured 15 clean breaks, were an entertaining watch, optimistically firing up the imagination for the weekends ahead.

Springboks: Their hard-to-please critics will immediately highlight how insipid Gonzalo Quesada’s Azzurri have become this year, but this drop-off shouldn’t dilute the lethalness of what Rassie Erasmus’ side produced on Saturday in Turin. It was 10 years ago in Florence when the Italians created history with a shock ambush, but there was never a whiff of a repeat upset 200 miles north as the world champions needed just 22 and a half minutes to register their bonus-point try – and they kept their foot on the accelerator to score nine tries in the 66-7 victory.

We have known for a while now the stardust Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu is capable of at No.10, but recent months have delivered him his potential long-term partner at nine. It does feel odd that Morne van den Berg is a Test rookie at the old age of 29, but while he might have taken the long route to gain prominence, he is now quickly making up for lost time and will be the No.9 against France on Friday. It shows that rookie Springboks don’t have to be young like Paul de Villiers. There is for golden oldies too, and it leaves Erasmus selecting from a position of strength.

Beauden Barrett: The line ‘form is temporary, but class is permanent’ perfectly sums up the All Blacks veteran. His begrudgers wanted to cast him off to the scrapheap earlier this year, wondering why the fudge Dave Rennie was persisting with keeping him in the squad when there were plenty of alternatives available. However, even the head coach has had his eyes opened in recent times about the enduring ability of the 35-year-old.

It may have been garbage-time minutes when he was given a lifeline seven weeks ago in Baltimore, but he scored a consolation that September day against the Springboks and has looked irresistible since then as the starting full-back, and has now followed his two-try burst in Sydney last month with another in Edinburgh. The value of his first can’t be underestimated; New Zealand, who had endured an emotional week following the sudden death of long-serving security boss Logan Cadwallader, were only leading 17-14 and down a man to a yellow card, but his 31st minute full-tilt burst to the line from five metres out was top drawer, highlighting the difference between the teams.

Henry Pollock: England returned to their ‘Pom Squad’ bench tactic on Sunday, and the six/two split finally worked a treat again after the abomination of their wretched 2026 Six Nations followed by the July hammering in South Africa, which resulted in Borthwick changing tack and going five/three for the following two matches.

Claiming back-rower Pollock had the unproven ability to cover the wing in an emergency, six/two was the make-up of Sunday’s replacements and the 21-year-old hoovered up the adulation with a two-try second half run as the English sub for the injured Immanual Feyi-Wabosi. Pollock has yo-yoed all year between cult hero and pantomime villain status, even having an on-field club-level bust-up 15 days earlier with Ollie Chessum, but he hit the jackpot against the Wallabies when highlighting his flexibility. Welcome along, Mr Hybrid.

Hugo Keenan and Ewan Ashman: Test level hat-tricks are special and this Irish/Scottish duo should be feted for their weekend exploits. The effort from the fleet-footed Ireland full-back will be more fondly remembered as it backboned his team’s convincing 42-12 hammering of Argentina, whereas Ashman’s treble, in sharp contrast, couldn’t alleviate the pain of his team’s 21-43 beating by New Zealand.

What the respective hat-tricks did emphasise was, from an Irish perspective, the danger of an elusive runner joining the line deep in an opposition 22. Its effectiveness was like a PlayStation cheat code. Meanwhile, for the Scots, Ashman’s deadliness showcased how they have a maul to be reckoned with and a hooker with the happy knack of touching down from the back of it. Well played, both players.

France: South Africa certainly whetted the Saturday appetite with their enthusiastic style of play in Turin, and what the French did later that night in Lyon will only add to the hype that will surround next Friday’s blockbuster Stade de France fixture between the pair. When the Nations Championship fixtures were first released, the November 13 match-up immediately leaped off the page as the stand-out must-watch and nothing has changed on that prediction.

Yes, Fiji are not the force they could be and are back rebuilding under Jake White, but the French stats of 13 offloads, 15 clean breaks and 33 defenders beaten demonstrated how effective their eight-try attack was, and it was also notable how Antoine Dupont rediscovered the poise and menace that had yet to fully return to his game since that dreadful March 2025 knee injury in Dublin. He’s definitely now back in business.

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Ireland: Seeing as we’re espousing the merits of souped-up international attacks, Andy Farrell’s Irish version also deserves a nod of approval. It is a fair assessment to say they had become generally clunky since Andrew Goodman succeeded Mike Catt as attack coach, but things clicked on Friday in Dublin and six tries in 56 minutes had their win over Argentina squirreled away at an early juncture. It was also encouraging to see Sam Prendergast take things up a few notches.

We won’t know until their South Africa match on November 21 where exactly this Irish iteration are, but Fiji’s arrival at Aviva Stadium next Saturday offers a dress rehearsal to further fine-tune the effective front-foot tactics that felt missing on too many occasions over the last two years.

BROKEN THERMOSTAT!

Wales: There would have been no dancing at the crossroads from Welsh fans on Saturday. Their third win in 13 Tests under Steve Tandy was a difficult watch, especially that long scoreless second-half wait until Josh Adams finally scored the bonus-point try on 69 minutes that provided some fleeting breathing space before tension returned in the final moments with Japan cutting the lead back to seven points.

The way things came out in the wash for Tandy’s team – just 38 per cent possession and 40 per cent territory, resulting in them having to make 227 tackles to the opposition’s 115 – was a prickly reminder that the journey they are on remains long and arduous and that the build-up to next weekend’s clash with the All Blacks will generate plenty of worry that a pasting will be the likely outcome. If there was an upside last weekend, it was that they still won and that their attendance of 52,425, although down 9,000 on the previous Japan fixture a year ago, was still more than Ireland’s below-capacity 50,000 versus Argentina.

COLD AS ICE!

Shaun Edwards: Argentina fluffing their lines under Felipe Contepomi isn’t a new development, but what was a fresh twist was how their latest calamity had Edwards along for the ride as their new defence coach. Edwards’ own propaganda, evident in a BBC interview last week, still portrays him as a world-class operator in his area of expertise, but the evidence of 2026 doesn’t back this up.

The concession of 96 points and 14 tries to Scotland and England last March cost him his France job, and his temporary stint with John Mitchell’s England women’s side coincided with the shattering end to their incredible winning streak. Now comes Argentina’s six-try crash in Dublin, a defeat where they looked messily uncomfortable until the last quarter when Ireland switched off. Edwards was admittedly only a few days hands-on in the job, but too many tackles were cheaply missed and he has much to do to restore his dented reputation as ‘master of the D’.

Wallabies: Avid readers of this column will know we were never convinced from the off by Australia’s appointment of Les Kiss as their head coach and that fear is now being realised as they were a mess on Sunday in London. It wasn’t that, say, their lineout collapsed and that one facet of play specifically can be blamed for the heavy defeat. It was that they generally didn’t do anything very well, lacking spark and energy across the board to make a better fist against an England team that could have wobbled if the Wallabies started fast.

It was a poor reflection on Kiss and his assistant coaches. Stuffed by the All Blacks in last month’s Bledisloe Cup series, which was a truer reflection of where they are compared to the September win over a much-changed Springboks XV, an improvement was expected, but they instead took another worrying few steps backwards. It’s clear that Declan Meredith isn’t the answer at No.10, and realistically neither is Ben Donaldson, so the head coach had a severe headache to remedy.

Finn Russell call: Speaking of No.10s, what the fig was Gregor Townsend up to by giving Scotland’s playmaker the shepherd’s crook with 17 minutes remaining at Murrayfield? Yes, Russell had looked tired, but when it comes to generating magic in the blink of an eye, surely the head coach should stick with a proven Test-level operator rather than blindly trust Tom Jordan to somehow conjure up something.

When the jaw-dropping switch happened, Scotland were 15 points down but still had time on their side to claw back the 15-point margin. Within minutes of the change, though, the home team conceded again, and the contest was left as dead as a dodo. If Townsend was a rookie Test head coach, the alteration could be excusable. However, as someone in charge since 2017, it was a damning surrender. The only upside, for the neutrals at least, is that Scotland versus Australia next Sunday has an attention-demanding element of despair about it.

Italy: What has frighteningly happened to the Azzurri since their early March jubilation of that historic first win over England? Five matches on the bounce have been lost and the way they were filleted by South Africa is a grave concern. They should be kicking on from eight months ago in Rome, but they have instead returned to the error-ridden team that Quesada inherited from Kieran Crowley after Rugby World Cup 2023.

One thing the Italians have regularly been good at is finding ways to get their home crowd involved in the atmosphere and ratchet up pressure on visiting teams, but the Springboks were tremendous and it wasn’t until the 62nd minute that the hosts got their only points. It’s a concerning downturn, but the arrival next of the out-of-form Argentina in Genoa offers a quick fix.

Nations Championship: The more rugby talks about growing the sport, the more decisions are reached that will result in the complete opposite. Nations Championship was supposed to be a bright, shiny new thing pushing the boundaries of the status quo, but instead the still sponsorless tournament has now further ringfenced the elite countries with the latest development being to set up a new commercial rights company, provisionally named F10.

Rather than bridging the game between the tiers and working towards a fairer Rugby World Cup in the long run, the divide will only be widened, especially as World Rugby, who are in charge of the tier two Nations Cup, haven’t much of a clue when it comes to giving that convoluted tournament genuine oomph. Last week’s stories about tier two players were surviving this month on a pittance were chastening.