{"id":11582,"date":"2012-06-18T11:32:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-18T09:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/06\/rugby-scheduling-helped-northern-teams-close-gap\/"},"modified":"2012-06-18T11:32:31","modified_gmt":"2012-06-18T09:32:31","slug":"rugby-scheduling-helped-northern-teams-close-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/rugby-scheduling-helped-northern-teams-close-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby-Scheduling helped northern teams close gap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Nick Mulvenney<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"articleLocation\">SYDNEY, June 18<\/span> (Reuters) &#8211; The apparent closing of the gap<br \/>\nbetween the northern and southern hemisphere rugby teams evident<br \/>\nat the weekend is in part the result of a change in scheduling,<br \/>\naccording to Wales defence coach Shaun Edwards.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Wales and Ireland lost to Australia and New Zealand in<br \/>\nheartbreaking fashion on Saturday, undone by dramatic late kicks<br \/>\nto fall to unrecoverable 2-0 deficits in their respective<br \/>\nthree-match series.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The closeness of the matches in Melbourne and Christchurch,<br \/>\nas well as England&#8217;s competitiveness despite going 2-0 down in<br \/>\ntheir series against South Africa, suggested to many that<br \/>\nnorthern hemisphere teams were improving.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Edwards, however, said that outside the World Cup and before<br \/>\nthe reintroduction of the three-test series in June, the<br \/>\nsouthern hemisphere had always enjoyed a distinct advantage in<br \/>\nmeetings with European teams.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you look at the results over the years, the strength has<br \/>\nbeen in the southern hemisphere,&#8221; he told a news conference.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But you have to look at the preparation that the southern<br \/>\nhemisphere teams have compared to the northern hemisphere teams.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The only time we compete on a level footing is at the World<br \/>\nCup &#8230; Every year, the Australians, New Zealanders and South<br \/>\nAfricans have four months together before finishing in the UK at<br \/>\nthe end of November.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The northern hemisphere teams sometimes just have a week to<br \/>\nprepare for those games.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Nick Mulvenney SYDNEY, June 18 (Reuters) &#8211; The apparent closing of the gap between the northern and southern hemisphere rugby teams evident at the weekend is in part the result of a change in scheduling, according to Wales defence coach Shaun Edwards. Wales and Ireland lost to Australia and New Zealand in heartbreaking fashion [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-11582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}