The Wallabies have come in for a mixed bag of criticism and praise for a solid RWC performance against Fiji. The failure to secure a bonus point could damage our chances of progressing out of the pool, but against an improved Fiji side, a 15 point win is nothing to be sneezed at.
Dual Opensides of Glory
Is it time to reassess what we Australians consider to be our signature style of rugby? God knows the backline was largely ineffectual in the win against Fiji. The memories of Campese, Latham and Larkham effortlessly gliding through defences, roll in their graves as the new Australian way dominates.
Stand up and take a bow Michael Hooper and David Pocock. If we do manage to win this thing, it wont be on the back of attacking backline brilliance. It will be our two aces dominating tackles and breakdowns, denying the opposition the ball they need to hurt us. As their combination develops we see a distinctive style emerging. Hooper tackles and then bounces to his feet with no mind to compete for the ball on the ground, stepping through and disrupting the counter ruck while his co-conspirator comes in hard on the ball.
In this game Hooper made 22 tackles, Pocock 16. More than 30% of the teams tackles between the two of them.
Set Piecemeal
If you didn’t laugh you’d cry. The scrum finally shows some promise as the lineout falters. The Wallabies only lost one scrum on the night, to some cynical boring in by the Fijian Loosehead. The scrum even managed to mostly overcome some amateur level feeding of the scrums by Genia, scrummaging for long periods of time to finally allow the ball to be hooked.
On the flipside, the minute Rob Simmons left the field our lineout went to pieces. Moore’s throwing was largely suspect, but points to a real lack of combinations outside of our first choice caller and hooker.
Í expect the team will work hard on alternative combinations this week, as you just can’t afford to waste possession 4 times a game off of set piece.
Moore or less?
Following on from above, it must be concerning for Chieka to see how average the form of his Captain is. Moore was weak with his carries, flopping at the contact and going in too low. His lineout throwing towards the end of his stint was flat and poorly timed.
Another performance like that will have people asking if we can afford to ignore the power of Polota Nau’s scrummaging from minute 0. The obvious choice would be for Hooper to take over the Captaincy if the above was to come to pass.
Where have all the finishers gone?
In what was a noticeable departure from recent history under Michael Cheika, the substitutions came too late to have any impact. As has been noted by a few, this was largely a response to the fact that all of the substitutions will likely run out in the starting 15 against Uruguay in 4 days time.
Cheika stated in his post game interview he was only recently made aware of the existence of bonus points at the Rugby World Cup and largely dismissed them as unimportant. But if the bonus point does become an issue down the track, you would have to think that the fresh legs injected earlier in this game would have had an impact in our ability to score that 4th try.
Snitches get stitches, you can’t win a worldcup without a 90% kicker and other undeniable truths.
Bernard Foley’s goal kicking form resurrection couldn’t have come soon enough. After a stodgy Super 15 where his kicking percentages were 10% less than the previous year, he then kicked at 55% in the Rugby Championship (1 game sample size).
When Foles kicked 6 from 7 against the Eagles, things were looking better but his 5 from 6 yesterday points to sustained improvement. You have to wonder why it took so long for the Wallabies to finally appoint a kicking coach, but thankfully they may have just in time.
