How George Constanza can teach Wallabies to beat Pumas

The Wallabies will have to take inspiration from George Costanza if they want to beat Argentina in Newcastle.

Argentina players celebrates their win over New Zealand at Bankwest Stadium

The Wallabies will have to take inspiration from George Costanza if they want to beat Argentina in Newcastle on Saturday night.

In the Seinfeld episode “The Opposite”, George, a perennial loser, does the exact opposite of what he would normally do and becomes successful.

Similarly, the Wallabies have to look at what the All Blacks did against Argentina in their historic defeat in Parramatta last Saturday and do the opposite.

Catching the football and winning lineouts on your own throw would be a good start but most of all the Wallabies must attack differently to the way the All Blacks tried to.

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New Zealand coach Ian Foster signalled before the Test that his side intended to play attacking rugby but they ran into a wall of Pumas defence. The All Blacks’ forwards tried to go through the middle of the Argentinians, which was not a bright idea.

Argentina identified No 8 Ardie Savea as the Kiwis’ main ball runner and marked him strongly, which meant they had little go forward.

In the backs five-eighth Richie Mo’unga had the All Blacks’ backline up flat in attack but the Pumas’ rush defence in the midfield gave them no room to move.

One way to beat a rush defence is to employ double cut-out passes to get the ball quickly to the wings but All Blacks centres Jack Goodhue and Anton Lienert-Brown did not possess the ball-handling skills to execute that tactic.

Goodhue and Lienert-Brown tried to crash through and instead they crashed.

I cannot see Wallabies centres Hunter Paisami and Jordan Petaia getting the ball to the wings under that kind of defensive pressure either. Nor do I see them crashing through the blue wall, although Petaia does have unusually strong leg-drive.

The Wallabies will have to take a different tack to find a way around the Pumas’ rush defence. I have always been a proponent of the flat-line attack but I do not believe the Wallabies have the personnel to execute it against a rush defence, particularly one as physically aggressive as Argentina’s.

This might sound heretical coming from me but I would advise Wallabies five-eighth Reece Hodge to stand deep in attack and use Paisami and Petaia as decoys for fullback Tom Banks out wide.

It would then be up to Banks to get around the Pumas’ rush defence by unleashing wingers Marika Koroibete and Tom Wright in the wide channels.

I was astonished All Blacks fullback Beauden Barrett did not chime into the backline out wide against the Pumas whose wingers had little to do defensively.

The Pumas were so disciplined with their ball-handling and tactical kicking that Barrett had limited opportunities to counter-attack. At the back of the game Barrett popped up at first receiver to try to make something happen but ran into the same blue wall that Mo’unga had experienced.

Hodge is a lot bigger than Mo’unga and Barrett and may be tempted to take on the Pumas in the narrow channels.

Maybe that is what the Wallabies intend to do but I would prefer to see Hodge keep the point of the attack away from the Pumas’ strength. The Pumas will tackle all day if you simply run straight into them.

The Wallabies will also have to play for territory. Their kicking strategy must have two main objectives. Firstly, keep Argentine five-eighth Nicolas Sanchez out of goalkicking range, which means well on his side of halfway.

It was obvious the Pumas had a pre-conceived plan to apply scoreboard pressure on the All Blacks by taking every attempt at penalty goal that presented itself.

Secondly, the Wallabies have to run the big Pumas forwards around the field to tire them out.

Like my old mate Roger Gould, Hodge has a big, booming boot, which will help the Wallabies keep the Pumas pinned down in their own territory.

But Hodge also showed he could kick with pinpoint accuracy when he chip-kicked from an attacking lineout for Tom Wright’s try in the Wallabies’ 24-22 win against the All Blacks in Brisbane.

Hodge could kick for the corners but this would just give the ball back to the Pumas, whose big forwards would love nothing more than trotting from set-piece to set-piece.

Instead, I would urge Hodge to kick for space with the aim of regaining possession to launch an attack or putting pressure on the Pumas at the tackle contest.

It would force the big Argentine forwards to cover a lot of ground, which is not something they would be too happy about.

Whatever the Wallabies do, it has to be different to the All Blacks. To paraphrase Seinfeld, if every instinct the All Blacks had was wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.