Wallabies regress to turgid year of 2007
By the time the season ends, the Wallabies players will have been on call for 310 days. Is that the reason they played the way they did against Argentina?
Why this sudden fixation with the passage of time? Well, there has to be some reason for the Wallabies playing the way they did against Argentina in Newcastle on Saturday night and while the popular theory is that they are useless and unskilled, perhaps there is another explanation.
Admittedly, the Wallabies have not been playing constantly for those 297 days. There were, as everyone knows, gaping holes in the season when no activity of any kind — even on the training field — was possible. Technically, that should have been down time for the players, though anxiety over the spread of COVID made that unlikely.
But whatever anxieties the Australian players were going through, they certainly were doing it a whole lot easier than the Pumas who had to evacuate their own country and cross over into Uruguay in an attempt to stay ahead of the coronavirus. And still the virus pursued them.
Yet, while the Argentine players were having only their second outing of the season on Saturday and looked mentally fresh, it was as though the Wallabies were playing in a fog. At times, they appeared to know exactly what they needed to be doing and were carrying out instructions to the letter. But then they just drifted away and mindless acts of indiscipline or plain stupidity intruded.
Recall the startled looks on the faces of Harry Wilson, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, Marika Koroibete and Michael Hooper as they were pinged for offside play or a late tackle … it was as though they had been shaken awake, rudely and abruptly. “Did I just do that?” they seemed to be saying as they slowly came to their senses.
This is not to make excuses for them. Nor is it to in any way downplay the Pumas’ performance. But Wallabies’ fans were bracing themselves for a possible defeat at the hands of a team which had brutally subdued the All Blacks a week earlier, so in many ways a 15-15 draw was not be sneezed at — if one can use such a term in the current environment.
Still, to lead 15-6 at the 62nd minute and to so lose control of the remaining 18 minutes that reserve halfback Jake Gordon was forced to scurry back to collect a threatening kick ahead and then dive over the sideline to bring proceedings to a close suggests the Wallabies’ wheels were about to fall off.
The finishers didn’t do their job. Winger Tom Wright was subbed at the 64min10sec mark — why, no one knows — and replaced by Filipino Daugunu. Less than two minutes later, Daugunu conceded a penalty the first time he touched the ball and while that surprised no one, there was also grounds to look accusingly at how slow the support was in getting to him. Still, any back three player needs to develop the skill to buy himself time until the cavalry arrives and until Daugunu learns to do this, Wright should be playing the full 80 minutes.
All the way through the match, there was a cause-and-effect element to the Wallabies’ play. Fullback Tom Banks was shown up badly when his catch-pass skills failed him and he cost Koroibete a try with a forward pass. Yet consider how laboured the Wallabies’ passing was inside him as Reece Hodge looped on Hunter Paisami before leaving all the work to Banks to put the winger away. Yes, Banks was exposed but had the ball been delivered to him just a fraction of a second earlier, a try would have resulted.
And while Wallabies supporters are revelling in outside centre Jordan Petaia’s dynamic approach to the game, the reality is that he is making life much tougher for any winger stationed outside him. It is like Adam Ashley-Cooper has been resurrected. Brilliant player, AAC, but shame he scarcely ever passed the ball.
Petaia repeatedly made the half-break on Saturday and then only needed to throw the pass to ignite a breakout. Instead, he held on, was taken to ground and the opportunity lost. He still looks the Wallaby most likely to emerge as a world-class footballer but for the moment he and Wright might need to switch positions. Certainly all indications at present are that the Brumbies winger has a much better appreciation of when a teammate is in a better position than himself.
Still, all of this shows attacking intent. Yes, the game finished as a try-less contest but, by my count, Hooper passed up on five chances to kick for goal in order to kick to the corner and go for the try. So either he was too aggressive in going for the seven points or too cautious on the six occasions he pointed to the posts but he surely can’t be both. And don’t forget that the Wallabies still were awarded two tries, only for them to be disallowed.
Coach Dave Rennie clearly has some work to do on the skill and tactical sides of the game but he also needs to re-examine how he is using his bench. If something or someone is working, he is not obligated to change it, no matter what personnel he has available in the reserves. The Australian scrum performed worse after he subbed Taniela Tupou and Paenga-Amosa, one at halftime, the other at the 54-minute mark. Suddenly Scott Sio began to develop the wobbles at loosehead.
Note how Eddie Jones deployed his front-row resources in the 18-7 win over Ireland on the weekend. Loosehead Mako Vunipola lasted until the 62nd minute, tighthead Kyle Sinckler until the 70th minute while hooker Jamie George came off with just one minute remaining to give Tom Dunn another cap.
Still, that England game provides an awkward reminder of where the international game is today. England kicked the leather off the ball and made more than 200 tackles to Ireland’s 60-odd. The England backrow alone made 74 of them — without a single miss. The game has gone backwards through time to 2007, to endless box kicks and airtight defence.
Eventually, it was the All Blacks who led the way out of that hole and today the game is crying out for similar leadership. Certainly there is no reason why Rennie’s Wallabies cannot be the cleansing breeze to trigger that renaissance.
But first, that breeze needs to blow the fog away.
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It is November 23 today, some 297 days since the rugby season started on January 31. By the time the season ends, the Wallabies players will have been on call for 310 days.