Why the All Blacks don’t care if Joe Schmidt and the Wallabies know their plays

Watching on as players finished training with bone-jarring defensive extras at Leichhardt Oval, All Blacks assistant coach Tamati Ellison was asked if Joe Schmidt would give the Wallabies new insights into the Kiwi team this week.

“You’d have to think so, because of being here [previously] and being part of the All Black jersey,” Ellison said. “You’d have to think so.”

Schmidt and his scrum coach Mike Cron were, of course, part of the All Blacks coaching staff last year before deciding to follow in the footsteps of Robbie Deans and Dave Rennie and cross the ditch to coach the Wallabies.

And, like Deans and Rennie before them, Schmidt and Cron will this week experience what it feels like to coach from the gold corner in a Bledisloe Cup bout.

Attempting to bounce back from a record defeat in Santa Fe last start, Schmidt’s Wallabies will meet the old foe at Accor Stadium on Saturday and attempt to revive the team’s wobbly fortunes. The contest is now down to two games, meaning the Wallabies must win to stand any chance of winning the Bledisloe Cup for the first time since 2002.

Schmidt and Cron drank from the big urn as recently as last year, though, and one of the tiny fingerholds of hope for desperate Australian fans is that the pair’s inside knowledge of the All Blacks’ tactics and behaviours might help conjure a Wallabies ambush.

Joe Schmidt at the World Cup in France where he was part of the All Blacks coaching staff.Credit: Getty

But can it? Will a New Zealand coach really help beat the All Blacks? The answer is perhaps best framed like this: do you want the good or the bad news first?

The good news is that if Schmidt’s first Bledisloe Cup experience is similar to that of Deans and Rennie, the game on Saturday afternoon will be a tight contest.

In 2008, Deans’ Wallabies beat the All Blacks 34-19 at Homebush, and in 2020, the Wallabies drew 16-all in Wellington in Rennie’s first trans-Tasman clash in rainy Wellington. Reece Hodge had a 55m kick after the siren to claim a first Wallaby win in New Zealand since 2001, but it hit the upright.

The bad news? Deans lost the next ten games on the bounce, and, though Rennie got a win later in 2020, it was his only one from eight Bledisloe games.

Schmidt is different, in that he has hopped directly from the All Blacks camp and into the Wallabies set-up, armed with still-fresh intelligence. The same goes for Cron.

James Horwill scores in the Wallabies’ win over New Zealand in Sydney in 2008.Credit: Jon Reid

But if they’re worried about it, the All Blacks aren’t letting on. Asked if they’d have to change calls and tactics, Ellison said: “There are a few bits, obviously, but I think fundamentally it’s a collision sport. You’ve got to win the big rocks to be in any game of rugby, so that’ll be our focus more than trying to have anything that’s too new.”

Which is another way of saying, ‘It’s one thing knowing what we’ll do, it’s another thing stopping it’.

And with the Wallabies coming off that 67-27 defeat to Argentina, the All Blacks – even after two losses against the Springboks – won’t be overly worried about an Australian upset.

Even the Wallabies aren’t focussing on the value of Schmidt’s knowledge of the All Blacks. After falling apart so badly in Santa Fe, the Wallabies have their hands full with basic jobs this week: patching up their own game and re-building damaged psyches.

Veteran prop Allan Alaalatoa said Schmidt hadn’t provided new insight into the All Blacks.

“Probably nothing that much [that] we haven’t heard before, even with him and Cron,” he said.

Argentina’s Joaquin Oviedo runs with the ball to score a try against Australia in Santa Fe.Credit: AP

“We have to have a preview [of the All Blacks] and understand what’s coming, but I think we need to pour all our energy into ourselves and delivering on what we say we’re going to deliver, over and over again.”

Alaalatoa said reviewing the Santa Fe disaster was “tough” but it gave the Wallabies valuable “learnings” on where it all went wrong – and, on the flipside, what they’re capable of when they execute their gameplan.

“There definitely is that edge,” Alaalatoa said. “It’s probably fuelled by a little bit of that disappointment. Everyone came in with an edge yesterday and that was only a walkthrough session. We’ve got to make sure we channel that in the right direction.”

Schmidt is expected to recall flanker Fraser McReight into the starting side, and while Hunter Paisami is still not fully fit, the importance of the clash could see him play. Brandon Paenga-Amosa is a chance to return as reserve hooker to offer more scrummaging power from the bench.

Fullback Tom Wright and lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto are both set to return to the side.

Watch all the action from The Rugby Championship with every match streaming ad-free, live and on demand on Stan Sport.