The Wallabies’ performance in Paris this morning was poor and unacceptable in both attack and defence. While they tried hard, they lacked the necessary basic imagination or creativity to breach the French line.
They turned the ball over to the French on 23 occasions. The Wallabies also missed 15 tackles from 64 attempted (24%) compared to the France missing 17 from 137 attempts (12%).
This is simply suicidal against against any French team, let alone a cohesive French team.
Further complicating this, the good French team turned up and were supported by their vocal Gallic fans in the beautifully French national stadium, Stade de France. I was hoping that bad France would play.
The game started at 9pm, local time. Slippery surface and ball, different pre-game routine. Then add all the other knowns such as the injury toll.
The Wallabies had their hands full before the first whistle. Their poor performance and the excellent French performance simply exacerbated the situation. I supported the Wallabies’ tactic in the first half of driving play. However, at half time that they had failed to convert this effort into space and hence get around the French defence and/or convert the pressure into points.
The French found another gear either side of oranges and the Wallabies could not go with them. The French had a seven speed, Formula 1 gear box and the Wallabies had a three speed column shift.
The final telling statistic was zero tries from 80 minutes of rugby for Australia.
Tries are principle responsibility of the fly-half. Kurtley Beale did not ask the necessary questions of a very good French defence and line speed. As fly-half, Beale has direct and full control and responsibility for the seven players backline players, plus ball carriers such as TPN, Dennis, Sharpe and Palu. At no stage did they really challenge a very good French defence.
Kurtley Beale was a great schoolboy fly-half. I watched him every week for six seasons. He is not an international fly-half. It is well known that he is not able to absorb and implement a comprehensive game plan nor adjust it to suit the status of the game. Robbie Deans confirmed it this week:
The biggest requirement for Kurtley, that’s distinct from fullback, is that he is at the hub of everything. He has not only got to drive it in the game, but essentially through preparation as well. There is a lot involved in that. There is a lot of homework, there is a lot of communication with the whole group, and he has to be around it and on top of it.
Perversely, his gift is his unpredictability and instinctive ad lib play that should augment a playbook. At fly-half, that uniqueness is a massive weakness.
Three days ago, I wrote an article on Green and Gold Rugby setting out what is at stake for Australian Rugby on this tour. The first objective was:
“in every match, play 80 minutes of passionate committed rugby that the country can be proud of.”
Judging by the Twitter traffic, the country is not proud.
https://twitter.com/finnstralian/status/267394602590429184
#FRAvAUS This time it was Australia who surrendered…:-(
— Penny Mallinson (@MallinsonPenny) November 10, 2012
Please don't let Robbie Deans back into the country. #FRAvAUS
— Mindy Pawsey (@MKPS001) November 10, 2012
There are many more comments — search with #FRAvAUS.
The French can, will and love to score tries. They also come with good goal kickers. The Wallabies needed to score points and lots of them. This meant scoring and converting at least two if not three tries. For the second game in a row, and fourth time this season, they have failed to score a try in 80 minutes of rugby (Scotland, Auckland, Brisbane and Paris).
My article followed Matt Rowley’s excellent analysis about what tactically the Wallabies needed to do to win the game against France. Matt’s article confirmed that there would be insufficient penalties from the French and that the French would score and convert tries.
Last night, once again, Berrick Barnes defied the coach’s instructions about kicking. He preferred to show off that he can kick with both feet. Who cares, when both feet produced brainless kicks that gave away valuable possession at critical times in the game?
Why does he continue to be selected, even on the bench? Waratahs fans have been frustrated for several seasons by this selfishness.
Dave Dennis, Nathan Sharpe, TPN and Cliff Palu all carried the ball well.
Rugby union in Australia is on its knees. Australian rugby desperately needs the Wallabies to win and win well, to bring back the crowds and reclaim the position of being Australia’s team. Last night’s performance completely failed in this task. It haplessly reloaded the PR weapons of the code’s competitors. The All Blacks will hardly be concerned about any threat from the Wallabies any time soon.
