Wallabies must abandon outmoded attacking style

I must say that I was a little bemused when I read earlier this week that the Poms should beshaking in their boots.

I must say that I was a little bemused when I read earlier this week that the Poms should be shaking in their boots because according to Australian reserve hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau, England have awakened the sleeping beast.

And to be true to Polota-Nau’s words, the Wallabies really did go to sleep after a fantastic opening 20 minutes in Brisbane which allowed the underdogs England to gradually take control of the first Test and give them a psychological advantage heading into tonight’s second match in Melbourne.

Perhaps the Wallabies underestimated the ability, passion and commitment from this England side which is always a mistake at this level and now, expectantly, are under enormous pressure themselves tonight in a must-win match.

The loss in Brisbane would have given Wallabies coach Michael Cheika sleepless nights this week because he would hate coming second to Eddie Jones, played out for the world to see.

History will forever show that Jones completely outwitted Cheika in game one, so expect an edge to tonight’s second Test with both coaches desperate to outpoint one another.

I was very surprised by the depth of the Wallabies attack in Brisbane, particularly from phase play. It was ridiculously deep and played into the hands of the England defence. The overly confident Wallabies three-quarters couldn’t handle the English rush defence. They thought that giving themselves a few more metres would be advantageous but it actually had the opposite effect.

I am not too sure what they call it these days but the second man play — with the first wave of two or three players apparently trying to create confusion in the defensive line before throwing the pass — to our supposedly better dangerous attacking players is out of date.

This type of mundane attacking structure is featured heavily in rugby league and even they can’t get it right most of the time because they have no idea of what is the right attacking depth or running angles which theory says is supposed to be flat and straight rather than across field.

I remember playing the exact same second man play for Randwick in the early ’80s, and although it occasionally worked well, I thought it was a waste of talent having two or three players running as decoys instead of being in the attacking line.

Australian five-eighth Bernard Foley reacted adversely to England’ s rush defence by receiving the football too deep from halfback Nick Phipps, which put the Wallabies under pressure for no logical reason.

This is one part of the game that I hope Wallabies attack coach Stephen Larkham has worked on this week and it makes me wonder why the Wallabies backline led by Foley could have fallen into England’s trap so easily.

For a start rush defence is one way of creating opportunities for the attacking team with sleight of hand but perhaps what Foley really needed was an additional ballplayer, which he didn’t have in Brisbane and won’t have in the starting XV in Melbourne tonight.

By playing Samu Kerevi and Tevita Kuridrani in the midfield there is no flexibility and unless England fall off their tackles tonight it will be much the same as last week with argy bargy and not much finesse.

When England substituted inside centre Luther Burrell for their second ballplayer in George Ford, only 26 minutes into the first Test, the game changed significantly.

The Wallabies kept punching away hoping for England to miss a tackle to enable them to bring fullback Israel Folau into the game but it backfired. It was embarrassing for Cheika and the Wallabies.

If the centre pairing of Kerevi and Kuridrani don’t have an immediate impact tonight I would like to see Christian Lealiifano get an early start and take some of the pressure off Foley, who needs to concentrate on the basics.

Before the series Cheika said he was confident that he had a squad to tackle the England challenge and to be honest I probably agreed with him.

But the first Test match provided a true reflection of Australian rugby at the moment. I hope I’m proven wrong and the Wallabies hit back tonight to keep the series alive heading into Sydney next Saturday.