In a paradoxical way, the heroes of the first week to me have been Tonga and Samoa.
Population of Tonga: 108,000. Per capita income: roughly $6000. They played England, a muscle-bound England. The England coach is most probably on £1 million ($1.83 million). Population of England: 55 million. And Tonga took the fight to them every inch of the way.
Samoa: population 196,000. Per capita income: about $6500. Yet against Russia, admittedly it was Russia but they are no pushovers, Samoa were outstanding. Brilliantly coached in the backs by another forgotten Australian coaching talent, the former outstanding Wallaby fullback Chris Latham.
And just imagine if all players born in Fiji and Tonga and Samoa were playing for Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. If we want to grow the game, that should happen.
Think, in rugby league, how dead the interstate series was between Queensland and New South Wales until the late Ron McAuliffe pioneered State of Origin. Now it is one of the finest sporting competitions in the world. Rugby take note.
Unfortunately, Australia is in the headlines for the wrong reasons.
Most of us believe the punishment of the winger Reece Hodge was ridiculous and the game is silly if we start punishing players for what Hodge didn’t do, but was thought to do. He is out for three weeks. It may make the Wallaby team stronger!
But to whinge about Fiji citing Hodge is disingenuous. What the rugby public may not know is that there is a citing officer attached to each match with the responsibility to cite. As a matter of course, that officer checks with both teams if there are any issues.
It helps the citing officer as he waits to receive the video from the host broadcaster. All international teams understand the process and appreciate knowing as soon as possible if they will have a problem, particularly after a night game. So, while the Hodge decision in my view is rubbish, the process was not.
Australia should stop whingeing and focus on the team rather than use some diversionary tactic to get the media away from an analysis of its performance. We don’t want any Jose Mourinhos in rugby!
What Samoa a couple of weeks ago and Fiji last weekend have both shown is that the Wallabies can be put under pressure if the physicality is turned up.
That may be why England look muscle-bound and slow, but physical they certainly are. This weekend we can expect Wales to bring plenty of intensity, especially with their blitz defence as coached by Shaun Edwards. Wales are the fittest team in Europe. They are the 2019 Grand Slam champions. Their defence under Shaun Edwards conceded only seven tries in all the Six Nations matches.
The Welsh backrowers Justin Tipuric and Josh Navidi are notoriously big hitters and the entire Welsh team will contest every Wallaby ruck. And they will do it with Welsh ferocity.
Wales are also very disciplined, which we weren’t last weekend. Wales conceded only 65 points in the 2019 Six Nations Championship. That’s a measly 13 points a game.
Now, as I suggested would happen last week, we got out of trouble against Fiji with rolling mauls. I also should point out that a Tongan-born hooker scored two tries for us and two Fijian born athletes scored for Australia when Australia was in trouble.
We had a stack of possession in the first half but did nothing much.
Twenty-three missed tackles in the match, and more than a dozen turnovers against a side that had less than 30 per cent of the possession is not good.
And the 39-21 to us is the most points scored by a Fijian side against the Wallabies since 1985.
But the 39 points gave us a bonus point, which is bound to help if we lose to Wales.
But going by the tries that Wales scored in the Six Nations, the Welsh team have proven that they are prepared to scrap and scramble for wins and they are very comfortable in a long, grinding encounter.
After all, they only scored 10 tries in the Six Nations Championship. But, on each occasion, they were comprehensive winners.
Two of their Six Nations tries were scored from passages of play over 25 phases. Wales will wait. They won’t panic.
Against England and Scotland in the Six Nations, Wales were prepared to smash away, looking after the ball for about 30 phases before the defence caved in. It won’t be pretty but their heart is as big as the Millennium Stadium.
Interestingly, three of their Six Nations tries were from attacking kicks. Their fly-half Dan Biggar is a master of the crosskick. Watch for it. Wales will also chip-kick close to the line when teams are rushing to get off their own line. Someone will need to cover in behind the first line of defence. Note also that four of their Six Nations tries were scored by their wingers.
George North has been impressive for years. He and Josh Adams are genuine try scorers and with Liam Williams at fullback, it is a beautifully balanced back three. But Wales are strong right across the paddock. They have a number of very clever scrum-halves in their squad. Historically Wales have produced brilliant number 9s. Gareth Davies and Tomos Williams were selected to play against Georgia and both had enormous impacts on the game.
Wales have been thrown off balance with their attack coach Rob Howley sent home. He has been with the Welsh team for 11 years. No one seems to be commenting on what this is about, other than it is an alleged potential breach of World Rugby regulation six which is about betting on the game. Howley is a distinguished Welsh Rugby legend. He is now out of the picture, but Wales won’t change their strategy.
They will box-kick from their own half and set their blitz defence against any counter-attack; and once they get inside our half they will look after the ball for long, long periods, looking to draw penalties or create space out wide for their talented back three. Against Georgia, Dan Biggar, the Welsh fly-half played very flat from lineout ball and exposed the space between the tail of the lineout and the first defender. And when Wales went through there, it was like cutting butter. The Wallabies will have to plug that gap along with many others.
Basically Wales treat each match as a heavyweight boxing contest. They back themselves over 12 rounds to be the last man standing. They are brawlers of the highest quality.
So, Sunday at Tokyo Stadium. It is an outdoor stadium with no roof. And they are expecting rain. The conditions may favour Wales, and the Welsh pack will thrive in such conditions.
The French referee, Romain Poite may also be an advantage to Wales because he has refereed them a lot in the Six Nations and Champions Cup. Poite is the most experienced of the four French referees and in a former life was a detective in Toulouse. Some say the policeman has never left Poite and he is happy to dish out red cards. A red card in this fixture could very well be the difference between the teams.
In other words, unfortunately, Poite could shape the results. We will have to be disciplined.
So, what are the questions we have to answer? Well, firstly, the Wallabies are going to have to have enough firepower to see off the Welsh challenge which would enable us to finish on top of the pool.
If we can do that, we’ll be on track to play France in the quarter-final and South Africa in the semi-final.
I know this is thinking much too far ahead but it does mean if we can go all the way, we play New Zealand in the final, if they make it.
All this in a week when it appears that officialdom in that other code want to rub Israel Folau out forever, another player whose home nation is Tonga.
We should thrill to the prospect of Tonga embracing Israel Folau to strengthen that nation’s competitiveness in any international competition.
Or, do some continue to treat Israel Folau as a criminal because he professed his Christianity?
But then, where is Rugby Australia in all of this?
It appears now that one of their defences in the Folau issue is that it wasn’t the religious content of his social media posts they objected to but rather the tone in which the comments were made.
As Janet Albrechtsen said in this paper yesterday, “If the wrong tone in an employee’s social media post, rather than the substance of that post, is enough to end a career, what’s next?”
So one minute we were told it was the content of the social media posts that was the problem. Now Rugby Australia seem to have changed their tune, saying it’s the “tone” of the posts.
As Janet Albrechtsen rightly said, “Rugby Australia’s core defence about the tone of Folau’s posts is nothing short of extraordinary. Who gets to determine what is an unacceptable “tone”?”
“If Rugby Australia does not object to the religious content of Folau’s posts, that must mean that Folau is entitled to say homosexuals will go to hell, but only if he says it nicely.”
There are so many aspects of the Rugby Australia administration that must be addressed, World Cup or no World Cup.
Rugby Australia should open their books and show us their total spend on the World Cup, including the staff, the board, the trips to Japan and the lavish cost of overseas camps.
How much money has gone to the clubs, how much to the blazer brigade and how much on junkets? If it’s our game, let’s see the figures.
Meanwhile, we have the fight of our rugby lives on Sunday. We have the ability, of that there is no doubt. But there is some doubt as to whether we can exploit that ability to the full.
I would be less than honest if I didn’t say, I have some concerns about Sunday.
Former Wallaby on track to collide with NFL megastars
A prospect almost too insane to imagine, but former Wallabies’ star Jordan Petaia could make his NFL debut against a mega star of American sport.
New app to revolutionise club rugby data
A revolutionary new app could transform data collection and storytelling for club rugby players, and eventually be used across all Australian grassroots sport.
Well, it’s World Cup time and if you are a rugby “nut” it doesn’t get any better.