I have watchESPN streaming and there are several matches from the rugby championship tournament available to watch on demand. Is this a major tournament and am I seeing the sport at it’s finest? Or am I watching an inferior version of the sport? I picked the Australia vs Argentina match to watch and Australia seems to be dominating.
Do you consider the Six Nations Championship “major”? It looks like it’s a southern hemisphere version of that.
Yes its a major tournament and you will see some great rugby. The pumas / wallabies would have been a better game if argentina hadn’t started 15 minutes after australia.
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Yes it is a major tournament if one of the two teams playing is the All Blacks.
Well, The All Blacks (New Zealand) are currently the best team in the world. Australia and South Africa are very good, quite capable of beating the All Blacks on any particular day, and Argentina are worthy opponents as well. It would not be unusual for South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand to all feature in the World Cup semi-finals, Argentina would probably be expected to be knocked out a little earlier but can certainly play at that level at times. The competition used to be the “Tri Nations” with just New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa.
Which is true for very small values of “any”.
Yeah, you know what I mean. 
These 4 were the semi finalists at last year’s World Cup. Argentina have been to the semis in two of the last three tournaments in fact. They’re the weakest of the four and your analysis is not incorrect in that respect, but this lot are a pretty good side.
This is probably the best tournament in world rugby as a consequence of it containing more of the best sides than any other tournament and in greater concentration than the World Cup. It, and world rugby in general, has one major problem. NZ is so much better than everyone else, it’s not really a contest currently. Right now, it looks like the only side that might give NZ a run for their money (and I stress might) is England. More likely, the second best side in world rugby is NZ’s second string.
Here are the resultsfor every iteration of the Rugby Championship/Tri Nations since 2000. New Zealand’s current dominance is extreme, but not unprecedented.
The Six Nations competition is much less predictable as can be seen here.
Yes, it’s a major tournament and you are watching world-class rugby.
As others have said, the All Blacks are dominating (they’ve won this year’s event after only 4 of the 6 rounds. 
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If you like that, you’ll really enjoy international rugby sevens (as the name suggests, only 7 players per side.)
It’s fast, has loads of scoring and is easy to follow. All players have to be really skillful at running, passing and tackling.
As others have said it’s probably the best rugby in the world but you can’t go wrong with any of the big competitions. It’s more than any one person could watch probably…
Rugby Championship
Six Nations
Super Rugby(southern hemisphere and Japan)
Top 14(France)
Aviva Premiership(England)
Pro 12(Ireland, Scotland, etc.)
Mitre 10(New Zealand)
Currie Cup(South Africa)
NRC(Australia…haven’t watched)
Top League(Japan…haven’t watched)
Nope, it’s all like that.
Nitpick - if England are close to giving the NZ 1st XV a close game, they should beat the 2nd XV, though it would probably be close.
Right - but that’s not quite what I said. I said England might (and even stressed the word) give NZ a run for their money. Argentina, in their most recent game v NZ two weeks ago, gave NZ somewhat of a run for their money, were ahead in the first half and only slightly behind at half time. They still lost by a lot of points.
NZ are so good right now that you could give them a run for their money, lose by 30 and lose to their second sting by two tries, which is usually a pretty comfortable victory. Of course, this theory isn’t very provable, since England won’t be playing NZ A anytime soon - but next summer the Lions are going on tour to NZ for 10 games and I can see them losing 5 of them - the Test series 3-0, the game against the NZ Maori and some Super Rugby side springing a surprise on them (probably Otago). That tour will probably give us some indication of the likelihood of NZ A being one of the two or three best sides in the world (even if the Lions are a scratch side and will need to gel together over the course of the tour).
I will say that it is sickening - absolutely sickening - that the talent pipeline in NZ can bear the loss of Carter, Nonu, Conrad Smith and McCaw and the national side just carries on like nothing happened. When England lost a load of their all time greats at once post the 2003 World Cup, the side tanked. When it comes to rugby, NZ are a scary bunch of bastards.
I’d argue that Barrett is a significant upgrade from 2015 Dan Carter, and Savea/Cane might also be better than 2015 Richie McCaw. The midfield isn’t quite so clear-cut but Fekitoa and Crotty aren’t bad.
Watched Mitre 10 Otago v Tasman and Manawatu v Canterbury this weekend and it’s ridiculous how much talent NZ has. Hoping the Lions can hold their own next year but 10 games in 5-6 weeks is going to be brutal.
You know, this may well be true but we should all just step back a little and examine what it actually means. 2015 Dan Carter was probably the best starting 10 in World Rugby - he’s certainly the most talented from the group of 10s that got to the QFs of the World Cup (I’d happily take '15 Carter over Bernard Foley). Sexton got injured so didn’t play his QF - he’s maybe the only guy who would have run Carter close (and for the record, I’d still have taken Carter).
So, New Zealand had the best fly half in World Rugby retire and they replaced him with someone better? As I said, this is probably true but just the idea of it is pretty crazy. This is how good New Zealand is at producing rugby players.
As for Cane/Savea - McCaw was inevitably slowing, age caught him up a bit - but, even though they’re winning a lot of games, I thought McCaw managed the game (and the refs) better and that’s a pretty important skill; he was going to be a big loss. This skill set will come over time for his replacements though. No one can play forever but I still think that you could have got another year out of McCaw post RWC - much like England could probably have got another year out of Martin Johnson back in 2003.
Just out of interest, what, currently, is the interest in international rugby in NZ? Since the start of the decade, New Zealand have a 92% winning percentage and one of those losses was after the squad came down with norovirus in the lead up to a game against England right at the very end of a long season. SA are in (both small and capital letter) transition and don’t look like they’ll be good any time soon. Australia are struggling. France have been pretty average for the better part of a decade. England are on the up but a) don’t play NZ for a good long while and b) are only just coming out of an extended period of underachievement too. NZ last lost to Wales in 1953 and don’t look like losing to them any time soon. NZ have never lost to Ireland, Scotland and Argentina and don’t look like losing to them any time soon. When it comes to interesting, competitive rugby, do you guys just focus on stuff like Super Rugby, or stuff that you don’t dominate all the time like the U20s and the 7s? The rest of the world are hardly giving you much to think about at the minute when it comes to 15s and I wonder whether this means that you’d look elsewhere for actual competitive matches.
I don’t live there anymore, but I doubt the complete dominance of the All Blacks has turned the NZ public off the international game.
Personally I’m still loving test rugby, and the Lions next year will be epic.
As to New Zealand’s ridiculous talent base - back in JuneI favoured Sopoaga for #10. Barrett certainly proved me wrong about that, but I still think Sopoaga and Cruden would be instant selections for pretty much any other international side.
And I strongly suspect that the Ioane brotherswill end up being better players than the Savea brothers. Akira (aged 21) is freakishly fast and strong, (even more so than 22-year old Ardie) and Reiko (19) just moves so well into space that he’s more of a threat than Julian (26).
The NZ public expects the All Black to win every match by 40 points, preferably to nil. It’s this expectation that gives the rest of the Union world hope and indeed the reward of a substantial volume of pinched silverware over the past decades.