Wallabies v England: Fine tuning enough for Cheika’s men to win

Fine tuning, not radical overhaul, by the Wallabies should deliver a win against England tonight.

The speed of life encourages us to reach for absolutes. Less time, think less, or at least outsource our thinking to experts who have ­curated the analysis for us. But too many experts deal in black or white as well. Our political ­aspirants speak in absolutes. Talkback radio thrives on it.

Sport may be the worst — we love our extremes, heroes and villains both. And even better when they go from one to the other so quickly. Eddie Jones is now acclaimed as Christ incarnate, the second coming ... oh, you better make that the third coming as ­Michael Cheika was the second coming last year. Ultimately, though, it’s lazy to think in absolutes. Easy, but lazy. Especially in a world where most of life plays out in the grey in the middle.

And rugby is a grey sport. Not grey from a spectacle perspective, as last Saturday night’s brilliant match vouched for, but because there are so many computations and permutations contributing to getting it right on the night. Granted it is not a simple game but it is a subtle game and it will be the Wallabies’ subtlety, working in the grey, that will pave the road to victory tonight, rather than reaching for extremes with a dramatic change of course.

So if the Wallabies are to keep the series alive tonight, the key question for Cheika is: “Did the Wallabies have the right game plan last Saturday, and simply not execute it well enough, or did they have the wrong game plan in the first place?”

When you lose a match, the lazy reaction is to reach for an absolute, but the simple analysis from Suncorp is that the Wallabies, while arguably beaten by a better team on the night, still got a lot right. Four tries to three and territory in the Wallabies’ favour. Possession as well. Just the scoreboard went the wrong way because most of the data didn’t.

According to the Fox Sports stats, the Wallabies dominated England in attack, with more run metres (802-412m), line breaks (10-5), offloads (9-1), and tackle busts (22-9). That should be enough to win any Test match. But then the bogeyman poked out his head and laid the red carpet for Owen Farrell in the form of a 15-8 penalty count. That produced 18 crucial points that kept them in the game initially and won it for them eventually.

Cheika has responded with four changes to his run-on team — Sean McMahon in for the injured David Pocock and Sam Carter for Rob Simmons. The front-row is ­revamped with Sekope Kepu and James Slipper in for Greg Holmes and Scott Sio.

In the current Wallabies team there are many players whom you could exchange and it probably not cost you a Test. Creating such depth and confidence within a broad squad has always been Cheika’s stated goal. But it’s easy to argue that Pocock is not one of those interchangeable players. To be a great player, which Pocock is, you can’t be vanilla, you have to be famous for something. Pocock is famous for his work on the ground and his crunching defence. But all is not lost as his replacement, McMahon, is famous for his physicality and he’s probably a better ball carrier than Pocock. So it’s by no means the end of the world losing Pocock, it’s just life, but in a different shade of grey.

One additional challenge in this series is the obstacle of confronting the same competitor three weeks in a row. Even with the Bledisloe, after back-to-back matches, there is two months of breathing space before the third match. Facing the same opponent in consecutive weeks allows both teams to school themselves on each other. This plays to the heart of one of Jones’s greatest strengths, his detailed analysis.

Be sure that while the English are capable of playing up-tempo, they will endeavour to impose a more staccato rhythm on this game than what the Wallabies would choose. They will be singularly focused on accumulating points and will take as much joy in counting in threes as they will in fives and sevens.

The Wallabies must counter with greater co-ordination and I expect the experience of working together under Test match conditions last week to have primed them to the nuance of their teammates’ idiosyncrasies. Such nuance between Michael Hooper, Scott Fardy and McMahon in the backrow, and Foley and his centre pairing, will dictate much of this match.

If England win tonight, it will absolutely be easy to think it’s the end of the world, ploughing through the fans post-match it might take some convincing otherwise, but some fine tuning, rather than wholesale panic, can lead the Wallabies to victory and a decider in Sydney.