Cautious optimism for Wallabies despite our Bledisloe history
It is Bledisloe Cup time when the Australian Rugby family hope, pray and cheer that we may write a new and rewarding chapter against our formidable trans-Tasman rivals.
It appears that after our defeat of Argentina I was wrong when I argued the Wallabies had found a new strategy, not pretty, in fact ugly.
I wrote: “It seems to be simple. Pick some of the biggest people on the planet. Plonk them in the backline. Send them, one by one, over the advantage line and hope like hell the defence will eventually fold.”
It was a ‘strategy’ where footwork, skill, speed and ball transfer didn’t seem to count for much.
I argued that the true test would come against the All Blacks. Well, here we are. At the time, following the New Zealand performance against South Africa, I believed the All Blacks looked vulnerable. They escaped with a draw in an error-strewn game.
Several things have changed.
For a start, it appears as though Australia are not playing to win the Bledisloe Cup but still trialling players for the World Cup. Does this mean that after all these hours of rugby where we have seen all of these players on show, we still don’t know our best side?
Perhaps I have it wrong but with a World Cup around the corner, I would want to know now our best team, and I would want to be consolidating combinations. Yet those who have chosen our side for tomorrow night have rung further changes.
Our forwards did splendidly against Argentina. They’ll need that and more against the All Blacks.
While winning the football is the first priority, how to use it is the greatest challenge.
The return of the gifted James O’Connor is, by any reckoning, a great story after so long in the wilderness. He is super talented. I would have had him in the run-on side for years.
The challenge of coaching is to take even the kid with a poor attitude, change the attitude and release the talent. This young man has a good heart. His dad was a preacher on the Gold Coast. He is one of four brothers. He will add some X-Factor and zip, but … will he get the football? Or, will Hooper and Co monopolise it at the base of the ruck and allow themselves to be picked off by the All Blacks?
Reece Hodge on the wing! So it is clear Australia will play with two fullbacks. Kurtley Beale loves playing with talented players, with hands, feet and vision. If we can play some width, O’Connor and Beale could prove a handful. But after all these years, how absurd that they are trying it for the first time?
Sensibly, Christian Lealiifano seems to be the first choice at number 10. But I would love to see Quade Cooper, James O’Connor and Kurtley Beale in full cry taking on an All Black defence. Make no mistake, Australia have talent. Do we have the organisation?
What is being said to our players, I have no idea but in the past two seasons we’ve been hammered by the All Blacks in the Bledisloe Cup openers.
In 2017, we were flogged by 50 points and in 2018, smashed by 40. We’ve not had our hands on the trophy since 2002.
In fact, since the 1930s, New Zealand have won 47 times and we have won only 12.
Lord Bledisloe, the then governor-general of New Zealand, donated the trophy in 1931.
Since then, we have played for the Cup 75 times in Australia. We have won only 22.
Players must understand that this kind of history exists to be broken.
I wrote last week that these rugby matches may be determined by goalkicking as much as by defence. Here New Zealand are vulnerable. They are wanting to blood a top-line goalkicker in Richie Mo’unga.
As brilliant as Beauden Barrett is, he’s not a world-class kicker. And this contest, as in the World Cup, may be decided by the boot.
If the All Blacks are to remedy their potential deficiency and, recently, they haven’t looked flash, Mo’unga will need to play well and knock over all the goals. The big question is, for all the talk and the bravura and the endless and expensive camps, does this Wallaby group have the collective belief to bury the back-to-back world champions?
In short, coming off a horrible 2018 season, can we now exploit the Kiwi’s shortcomings?
There are some sideline stories here. I find it remarkable that the West Australian government would want to put Australian Rugby into their shiny new stadium.
It’s not so long ago that Rugby Australia knifed the Western Force for whom, in many ways, the stadium was built with taxpayers’ money.
Indeed the Western Force were dudded by Rugby Australia in a very humiliating way.
How any WA Sports Minister could work, in these circumstances, with Cameron Clyne is beyond me.
Obviously, Rugby Australia will derive some much needed benefit from all the Qantas package deals to Perth and people jetting in from the eastern states and New Zealand.
The WA economy will get a much-needed boost. This is what the Bledisloe Cup does.
Nonetheless, the only losers in this remain WA Rugby and the rugby community over there.
Reports this week suggest that rugby participation numbers in WA are down 20 per cent and there is even talk of the possibility of the state union needing a sizeable bailout.
Politicians being politicians, they can’t avoid rubbing shoulders with the blazer brigade no matter how much rugby treachery is brought with them.
This is a formidable All Black side. Every All Black side is formidable, but there will be another unstated factor at work. This week saw the passing of the rugby and All Blacks legend, Sir Brian Lochore.
Brian was a magnificent No 8, chosen to captain the All Blacks ahead of greats like Sir Colin Meads, who sadly passed away in 2017 having been regarded as one of the greatest players in history.
But Brian Lochore also was chosen to captain ahead of Kel Tremain, who enjoyed a rugby status comparable of that of the great Meads. Kel also passed away in 1992. And now, Sir Brian Lochore.
By 1983, Lochore had become an All Black selector and by 1985, he was coaching them.
I had the honour and pleasure of coaching against him in the 1986 Bledisloe Cup series that we won with a splendid Wallaby side, most of whom had won the Grand Slam in 1984.
I always found Sir Brian Lochore to be informed, courteous, generous and unfailingly loyal to the great traditions of the game. In short, a gifted rugby gentleman.
The All Blacks are very good at recognising the contributions of their tribal members. They communicate respect for worthy warriors in the only way they know — delivering on the paddock.
The Kiwis call it ‘mana’, deriving as it does from Polynesian languages; a kind of supernatural power. According to the Bible, God provided manna, an edible substance, for the Israelites during their travels in the desert during the 40 years following the Exodus and prior to the conquest of Canaan.
The only problem is, it is we who have been in the rugby desert, desperately in need of a comparable substance. The All Blacks will have added mana in Perth.
They’ll be wearing armbands and there will be an intensity, which so far this season has been absent, as a sign of contemporary All Black respect. That said, you can’t win Rugby Tests without the football and that has to come from the forwards.
There has been sensible selection in the composition of the back row. Someone has at last woken up that we need big aerial players at Nos 6 and 8 to be more effective in the set piece. We achieved that against Argentina.
The bigger players are not only better lineout players but the scrum becomes more dynamic.
It is like playing with four athletic second rowers. Which prompts the question, what is to happen when Pocock is fit to play?
On this scenario, you can’t play Pocock and Hooper. Hooper is the captain. The English coach and former Australian coach, Eddie Jones, had no problem cutting his captain, Dylan Hartley from the England World Cup squad.
Will the new head of rugby, Scott Johnson pull rank on Michael Cheika over the captain and choice of the back row? Will we see some feathers flying in the selection room? None of that can be answered until Pocock is fit to play.
However, there is some sort of a makeover taking place within the Wallabies, even though there are too many changes among those who have to use the ball; and when confusion about use takes over, mindless kicking begins.
I hope we don’t see that tomorrow. It’s not gilding the lily to say I detect improvement. I said last week, this is a mountain to climb.
But the All Blacks too are experimenting with number 10 and number 15. There is a vulnerability waiting to be exposed.
One try and a draw against South Africa would not inspire confidence; indeed it may well have New Zealand reaching into the excuse bucket. Put simply, this game is much more important than either side will let on.
I said last week, and I’ll say it again — in my more optimistic moments and given the current state of play, I’ll be taking the odds on offer for Australia.
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