Why Kurtley Beale shapes as the man to unlock Israel Folau’s dormant world-beating form

KURTLEY Beale’s decision to return home was a massive coup for Australian rugby but the biggest winner from the move will be his future centre partner Israel Folau.

Israel Folau and Kurtley Beale’s combination is lethal. Picture: Adam Taylor

IT may not help the Waratahs this season but Kurtley Beale’s decision to return home could prove to be a two-for-one victory for Australian rugby.

It could spell the return of the world-beating Israel Folau, too.

Beale’s announcement last week that he’d be leaving Wasps and heading back to Sydney in June came as a welcome ray of sunshine in cloudy times for Australian rugby.

Amid underwhelming results in Super Rugby and doubt over the future of an Aussie franchise, Beale re-signing with the ARU and NSW gave suffering supporters hope that the centre’s natural talent will help the Wallabies and Waratahs rise again.

Israel Folau and Kurtley Beale’s combination is lethal. Picture: Adam Taylor

For NSW, the Beale factor is clear: between 2014 and 2016, the Waratahs won 71 per cent of games with the No.12 on the park. Without Beale, the win percentage of NSW fell to 37 per cent.

But what is less documented is Beale’s impact on Folau, who was utterly dominant between 2013-15 but has struggled to maintain the same lofty heights since an injury-affected World Cup.

After Beale returned to the Waratahs from Melbourne in 2014, stats show his playmaking was crucial to unlocking Folau’s brilliant running game.

BEALE: Cheika brought me home

Between 2014 and early 2016 — when a mid-season knee injury hastened Beale’s departure to England — the duo played 38 Super Rugby games together.

Fox Sports Lab figures show Beale directly laid on five tries for Folau, or based on a tally of 23, almost one quarter of all his tries.

The pair won a Super Rugby title together in 2014.

The Beale-Folau try combo was the second most prolific in Super Rugby in those three seasons.

Folau also made 42 linebreaks and Beale laid on seven of them, or one in six. That was the highest figure of any combination in Super Rugby in those same three seasons.

Without Beale in the team, Folau scored less tries per game and made less linebreaks.

The brilliant Beale-Folau connection doesn’t translate to Test rugby as clearly but likely because Beale was not a regular starter in one position.

The statistics from their three Waratahs seasons came when Beale was playing No.12 and Folau was the starting fullback, and that won’t be lost on Wallabies coach Michael Cheika.

Cheika the NSW coach in 2014-15 and is set to put them in those same roles in the June series.

Beale will return too late to help the Waratahs this season, and whether Folau will be wearing No.13 or No.15 when they reunite in sky blue remains to be seen.

Waratahs coach Daryl Gibson is keen on Folau as a centre and moved him there last year but with NSW not firing, he has set a round seven deadline on the experiment.

Folau showed busy form in the No.13 and scored two tries against the Sharks last week in Durban but in a rare admission, he said while enjoying the learning process at centre he felt at home at fullback.

“Obviously I am a lot more comfortable playing at that 15 but me and Daryl spoke at the start of the season and said we’d reassess things after the first seven games and see how everything is going,” Folau said.

“I am just really enjoying the learning of it and taking it one game at a time. I am really confident playing that 15 role and if I had to get to dropped back there, it doesn’t make too much of a difference for me.”

The Waratahs meet the Brumbies in a huge grudge match on Saturday night at Allianz Stadium, with the winner set to take important points in the Aussie conference.

There are four games left on Folau’s no. 13 experiment but Gibson could probably boil it down to his 80 minutes on Saturday night, where Folau will face off against Test centre Tevita Kuridrani.

“Defensively he is very strong and reads the attack really well,” Folau said.

“When he carries the ball as well, he is a strong carrier of the ball​. He can break tackles.

“Those are things as a team we have to be wary about and we know that when Tevita gets the ball he will be out to make something of it.”

Originally published as Why Kurtley Beale shapes as the man to unlock Israel Folau’s dormant world-beating form