Tri-Nations: Final match of rugby season loaded high with pressure

The final game of the season tonight is loaded with high expectations. The unease is coming through in ever-increasing waves.

Wallabies skipper and head coach Dave Rennie ready for the team photograph in Sydney. Picture: Getty Images.

The Wallabies are not just seeking their first true ensemble performance of the Dave Rennie era but are under pressure to entertain in the process.

Australia will play only its sixth Test of the season tonight, under way at 7.45pm AEDT, and while there were encouraging moments in Brisbane and Wellington against the All Blacks and again in Newcastle against Argentina, the Wallabies have reached the end of the line for 2020 and are still not looking to deliver a performance that satisfies both players and supporters against a rattled Argentina at Bankwest Stadium.

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The unease is coming through in ever-increasing waves.

Wallabies assistant coach Scott Wisemantel raised it first, suggesting – very much tongue-in-cheek – that Australia could opt out of the entertainment business and essentially follow the tried-and-true British method of “kick and clap”.

Then it was the turn of Rennie, whose tricky job it is to produce what even the All Blacks are finding to be almost two mutually exclusive tasks – putting on to the field not just a winning side but one that also entertains.

“We definitely want to play and we’ve certainly tried to grow our game around our skill set,” Rennie said. “But I think we’ve got an obligation to put in a quality performance, not necessarily entertain by throwing the ball all over the place at the risk of losing the game.”

Finally, captain Michael Hooper set out his expectations of the game.

“We want both sides of our game to click tomorrow,” he said. “We’ve been good in patches in different games throughout the year but we are looking at a complete performance tomorrow, attack, counter attack, defensively, to keep these guys – (Pumas goalkicker Nicolas) Sanchez is a great player – to minimal points.”

The Weekend Australian has long complained that the game has reverted to the conservative tactics that won the 2007 World Cup for the Springboks and it was good to hear Sir Clive Woodward bemoaning the fact that a key element of those Jake White tactics, the box kick, has once again become an integral part of the game.

“Where has the instinct to tap-and-go disappeared to?” Woodward, the World Cup-winning England coach of 2003, asked in his Daily Mail column.

That same question could well be put to the Wallabies. The expectation before the international component of the season started was that Tate McDermott, the Queensland Reds halfback and perhaps the deadliest tap-and-go exponent in the business, would see plenty of game time this season. Instead, he has been limited to minor cameos in Sydney and Brisbane. And why? Because his box kicking is not up to speed.

The tensions between playing winning football and attractive football are always present in Australian rugby and Hooper, as captain, finds all the angst channelled through him.

Asked if he was happy with the decisions he made during the 15-15 draw with the Pumas in Newcastle, Hooper insisted that he was, even though he came under fire for turn down four kickable shots at penalty goal.

“At 15-6, we were primed to put that game to bed which we weren’t able to do.”

Rennie again. “We were disappointed with that last Test. When we were up 15-6, we should have forced them to play more.”

That the secret then, as Eddie Jones’ England has long discovered, is play for field position, kick for the corners and rely on defence to tie up and ultimately completely rattle an increasingly desperate side. It was how England beat Ireland recently.

For years, the All Blacks have exploited this tension within the Australian game, sweating on a Wallabies’ mistake in order to unleash their counter-attacking brilliance. Still, is it any wonder the game is open to such widespread criticism today when the safest way of winning is to give the opposition the ball and wait for them to panic?

No-one can predict how the Pumas will react to all their internal turmoil over the past week. They always planned to save the best side for Australia but, with the suspension of captain Pablo Matera, lock Guido Petti and hooker Santiago Socino, they have been forced to play no fewer than seven members of the team trounced 38-0 by the All Blacks last week.

Marcos Kremer, who has been such a weapon for them at openside flanker, has been forced into a makeshift role as Petti’s second-row replacement.

The Argentinians have had a chaotic week. That will mean they will come out and play sublime rugby. Or they will fall apart.