The first thing is to say that we just aren’t good enough. I know we’re playing in a high level competition versus number one and two in the world – but we are ordinary.
Once again there was no part of the game where we had any superiority: not in our kicking game, not in our chasing game, not in our lineout play, not in our scrum in, not in our attack, not in our defence. Not only not in our attack or defence, but not in our catch and pass skills or in our tackling as components of those two key areas of the game.
It’s not that we can’t improve in some of those areas and we certainly can, but it looks to me that our peak performance currently can’t reach the required levels to beat our opponents.
I though that in the first half especially, the difference between when South Africa had the ball versus when Australia had the ball was chalk and cheese – it looked like a different game; we were slow and ponderous, they were frenetic.
There was a complete lack of urgency in the Wallabies’ play – in the assembly, but also in things like acceleration and leg drive in contact (attack or defence). Without urgency right across your game you can’t hope to play at any level.
You saw some urgency born out of desperation in the second half. Finally desperate to rescue something out of the mess of the first half. Urgency born from despair though is not enough – it must be born out of hunger for excellence.
Then, from that lack of urgency, many things occur. The first is poor execution in virtually every aspect of our play. For example: if there’s no urgency in our recycle, we don’t achieve any continuity with any meaning. South Africa’s urgency was to recycle the ball immediately – that meant there was virtually no time between a ball carrier being tackled and the supporting players arriving.
When I coached there was no time in which there was an offside line at the tackle – it was only when a ruck was formed. We therefore had a saying which was ‘no daylight’; that is no space between the ball carrier and the supporting players arriving at the tackle to create the offside line.
South Africa had a continuity that put defence under tremendous pressure – they were making yards with every touch of the ball. Our continuity was a series of set plays in which the game stops between each phase. That, in fact, is not continuity at all.
Such a lack of urgency can stem from an overly structured game. Structure is if we say we’re going to execute phase A, and if we get to or beyond the advantage line we’ll do B, and if we don’t then it’s something C, etc. Well, if we are doing this then it’s likely the urgency will go out of phase A, as we are already planning both B and C.
Phase A should be about getting the ball closer to the oppositions try line and phase B about getting it even closer. Structure is an over-read; all opportunity is around the ball. Quade Cooper read that the ball was going to be going somewhere it didn’t – and we saw the result.
So our lack of urgency gave us a lack of execution, and then it was compounded – perhaps by the impending loss – by a lack of communication.
People might say that Israel Folau looked devoid of options when he got forced into touch. Well his choice of options is governed completely by the number and quality of options that your teammates make for you. Either there’s no-one in position (most of the time) or the communication is not good enough to make one or more options available.
I thought Australia suffered once again with some French refereeing which in my opinion was just stupid. I watch quite a lot of French reffing and it seems to me they’re paranoid with dangerous tackles.
Did Michael Hooper lift Eben Etzebeth? Clearly no. But to rub salt into the wound, the South African No.7’s retaliatory ‘tackle’ on a man who never had the ball (Hooper) clearly was lifting. Why was that OK?
And why was it OK for Duane Vermuelen and Jannie Du Plessis to come in at every opportunity and attack the heads of players? I should hope Du Plessis will be the subject of further scrutiny in this regard.
It made no difference on the outcome, but we’ve got to do something about the ridiculousness of the refereeing. It’s not up to the standard of the play.
As another example, if we are to be informed by the actions of the TMO and referee in the Argentina versus NZ match, then every time a person in the scrum half position has his hands on the ball the ball is ‘out’. It was always the case that a ruck was over when a bird could poo on the ball, not when a scrumhalf was trying to dig it out.
If every time a player came round when the half back had his hands on the ball he’d be pinged offside 9 out of 10 times, yet Kieran Read ran around and scored a try against the run of play by doing just this. We can’t accept this level of refereeing.
As for the Wallaby players; some people of the hunger and passion of Michael Hooper wouldn’t go astray – Ben Mowen showed some signs.
Tevita Kuridrani’s performance reinforced my suggestion that he could be an ideal proposition at inside centre. I thought his tackling was first class and his lines of running were good. He looks like he can do the job.
Some have suggested that Will Genia sparked things, but I thought the Boks had run out of puff. His distribution was better but still has a way to go.
I thought that Cooper improved a little on where he’d been before, but is still way off the standard required. We can’t keep picking him – despite me being a fan.
I can’t see how we can play with Ben Alexander and James Slipper regardless of their work rates. We will be demolished next week if we start with them. We have to play with Benn Robinson, and even though I’m a non-fan, we have to play with Sekope Kepu. We may still get done, but at least we’ve got a hope.
Our tackling is not tackling, pretty much across the board. Apart from Mowen, Kuridrani, Joe Tomane and Hooper’s tackles, there is no leg drive. There is some technique involved in tackling, but most of it is the passion to stop the opposition going forward. We are missing this.
The Wallabies over all didn’t much look like scoring a try. When Matt Toomua made the break, he ran for some way searching for someone to pass to, but everyone else was happy to continue their line of running with the defenders between them and the ball carrier. The art of support play is to make sure this doesn’t happen! This is something you can just practice because no one is stopping you from getting there!
I concluded in watching the game that we cannot be practising at that pace and with that degree of urgency, or we would be able to produce it on the pitch. If we want an exercise of leg drive in attack and defence, we could do worse that to have a look at Argentina versus New Zealand last weekend.
As for next weekend, I can’t see any way that we can beat Argentina in Rosario.
