Little things that make big things possible for the Wallabies
The Wallabies are thinking small this week, which is a novel approach for a side about to face its biggest challenge.
The Wallabies are thinking small this week, which is a novel approach for a side about to face what many believe to be the biggest challenge in world rugby, the All Blacks.
But while the Australians believe they have the major fundamentals of their game in reasonably good order for Bledisloe III at ANZ Stadium on Saturday, it is the small detail which is killing them — the unsighted offload, the careless ball-carry, the lack of patience in the NZ quarter, the impromptu, thoughtless kick.
Individually, they are momentum-killers. Collectively, they add up to the sort of performance turned in at Eden Park 10 days ago, where the Wallabies competed well everywhere but still found themselves 20 points adrift at full time.
The Wallabies coaches might like to boast that they don’t operate in silos, with the lineout coach considering how his work will impact on the attack coach and the scrum coach thinking outside the set piece to determine its place in the overall defensive pattern, but the players tend to concentrate very much on their own areas of expertise.
So tighthead prop Allan Alaalatoa and lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto were wasting little time on the Wallabies’ high-ball tactics on Tuesday as they directed all of their energies instead to their attacking and defensive maul.
“We felt that we were strong in our scrums but what we lacked was our reaction in defence in the maul,” said Alaalatoa, who could well be giving the first shift in the “three” jersey this week, with Taniela Tupou coming on to relieve him in the second half.
“That’s been a work-on for us, making sure that we get our set piece right, understanding that we need to make improvements in our maul.
Salakaia-Loto likewise was confident the lineouts had improved dramatically in Auckland, though starting from a low base from the performance in Wellington a week earlier.
“Reiterating what Allan said, our reaction in transition to stopping those mauls is something we have worked hard on and will continue to do so,” Salakaia-Loto said. “We’re happy with how we went but we’re not complacent and we’re looking to improve each week and get better in that space.”
Everywhere the Wallabies look, they can get better. “Across the board there needs to be not huge improvements but little improvements, to be more efficient and playing in the right areas,” said five-eighth James O’Connor. “Little tweaks that will leave us in better stead because we did leave a lot of points out there.”
They might well be dying the death of a thousand cuts but whether the damage is inflicted in gaping wounds or minor nicks, the end result is still the same. And unless the Wallabies make a stand at ANZ Stadium and win in Sydney against the All Blacks for only the second time in 12 years, the Bledisloe Cup will be dead to Australia for a 17th straight season. It is hard to sustain talk of a Wallabies revival in the face of such numbers.
Yet there is a stubborn belief in the Australian camp that if they can sandbag their set pieces and make incremental improvements across the “little things”, they are not far removed from the All Blacks.
In 128 minutes against the All Blacks in Wellington and Auckland, the Wallabies trailed by only three points, 26-23, Australian halfback Nic White argued. “In three of those halves, we did really well,” he said.
But the fourth half cannot be breezed over. The Wallabies conceded two tries within six minutes of the restart at Eden Park and another at the 54 minute mark. Holding the All Blacks to their 27-7 lead for the remaining 26 minutes of the match might have been a salve for their pride, but it was little else.
“If you miss that many tackles, in the blink of an eye you’re two tries behind,” White said. “Yes, your confidence is going to take a hit. We know we can get back there and in the first half we played some really good footy. There are some areas we can tweak and we left a bloody lot of points out there.
“So, are we good enough? Yeah. Do we have confidence that we can do it? 100 per cent.”
Whatever happens this weekend, Australian rugby cannot lose in one respect after the Liberal National Party in Queensland confirmed it would match the commitment of the Morrison Federal Government to providing $15m to the redevelopment of Ballymore.
With the Labor Party having already pledged that same amount to the project, it means that the $30m project will go ahead whatever the outcome of Saturday’s Queensland state election.
It brings full circle work that the QRU has put in since 2007. In that year, the then Prime Minister John Howard pledged to build a national training centre at Ballymore, but the project was immediately scrapped once Kevin Rudd swept to power.
The LNP has further sweetened the pot by pledging $2.5m to upgrade Townsville’s ageing Hugh Street rugby ground.
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