Wallabies show promise and progress ahead of All Blacks day of reckoning

The challenge facing rugby union in Australia is accentuated over the last weekend in September and the first in October. Rugby is not guaranteed to have an Australian team winning whereas its biggest winter rivals, the AFL and the NRL, aside from if the New Zealand Warriors one day triumph, are. Draws, and two of them, even in two great Test matches, can be less edifying still.

With the equalisation of salary caps and drafts across what are essentially domestic leagues, it is rare to see teams dominate in the same way the All Blacks have in a competition selected on nationality guidelines. Astonishingly, in the NRL, no club has won consecutive premierships since the reunification of the game post Super League in 1998. That is now 20 seasons without back-to-back premiers — an administrator’s dream.

Hawthorn and Brisbane, in the AFL, have both defied the trend, winning triples in that time, but they sit as anomalies. So, while the AFL and NRL all but manufacture the best opportunity for a different side to win each year, and celebrate Richmond and Melbourne for their victories while eulogising the Cowboys for their bravery regardless, the Wallabies’ draw is beamed and bemoaned from South Africa in the middle of the night. At least this weekend’s game from Argentina will be at a more convenient 9am Sunday morning timeslot over breakfast rather than a midnight snack.

While another draw with the Springboks was disappointing, it was a statistical outlier of a result and one that allowed the Wallabies to hold the Mandela Plate, an achievement that sits below a Bledisloe Cup but of increasing significance between the two countries. Against the Boks at altitude, I was particularly impressed by the team’s kicking game. Gone were the wasted grubbers in attack and popgun kicks out of their own 22. The grubbers were replaced by ball-in-hand play and the decade-long cycle of defend, kick, lineout, defend etc. was broken. With the Wallabies winning kudos for kicks, the preferred Springbok ­tactic to peg them in their own ­territory was quashed.

This fact alone allowed the Wallabies to dictate on their own, attacking terms, rather than being reactive and defensive. This ­potency was further augmented as they have made the fewest turnovers of any side in the Rugby Championship this year.

Equally impressive has been their discipline as they remain the only side in the tournament to not concede a yellow card. The Argentinians have conceded 6.

Fitter, fewer turnovers, better and smarter kicking, more discipline. So, are we seeing the emergence of a different, more consistent and mature, Wallaby side under Michael Cheika and his staff? The evidence is hopeful but the key will be if they can turn this trend into a habit, and a habit into wins — especially the 50-50s, and wins into championships. For that’s their potential. Of course, there is much to work on. Breakdown effectiveness on pilfers and defence are top of mind. Last week they had a season high stat of missed tackles and allowed 20 offloads. The All Blacks feed off such scrap.

This week they contest the only winless team in the championship. While the Wallabies have scored and conceded 20 tries to date, the second best and second worst in the Championship respectively, the Pumas have scored 8 yet conceded 26, the worst on both fronts.

Nonetheless, it is never easy in Argentina and there will be no subterfuge. We know they will pick and drive; we know they will interplay between forwards and we know they will attack the breakdown hard. The Wallabies must absorb and overcome this as they did in Perth in their last ­encounter.

I am also interested this weekend in how the Springboks respond to the All Blacks. Was their 57-0 humiliation in New Zealand an aberration? And will they turn it around? The All Blacks aren’t spooked by playing in South Africa but they still know they must be wary as it is hard to conceive how the Springboks won’t be better.

That said, the Boks are far from a team sure about how they want to play and the key will be how they respond to the inevitable darker moments the All Blacks subject them to.

With the demand for a winning Wallabies the pressure will build this weekend. Pleasingly, with an unchanged starting team for the first time in Cheika’s reign, on-field consistency is being rewarded with selection consistency. While their real day of reckoning will occur in two weeks in Brisbane against the All Blacks, there seems to be enough promise and ­productive progress for fans to ­believe they will see more winning Wallabies in future Septembers and Octobers.