I thought it was clearly a great result, but I also thought it was a great performance. For three quarters of the game it was the best I’ve seen Australia play for 10 years. Yes, that long.
Before the tour began you might remember I said it would take a miracle to win all our matches and that four from five would be a great result. Well in fact we were unlucky not to win the England game but for some very ordinary officiating by the touch judge and TMO, without which we would have won the lot!
So it’s been a really good tour, but I hadn’t thought the Wallabies had played exceptionally well until this last game. Even though at times during the game, particularly in the last quarter, we fell away a little bit, we still managed to come back and win the game deservedly. We were clearly the better team.
Quade Cooper’s yellow card didn’t help us in that last period but we managed to overcome it as well. For what it’s worth – that card can only be described as a farce. If you need that many slow motion replays to make out that it’s a marginally early tackle, how can it really be a flagrant example of cynically stopping a try?
I thought our attack was much better than it has been. I thought Quade played very well. Pretty much we avoided useless cutouts (in my experience the number of times a cutout destroys an opportunity versus the number of times it creates one is about 10:1). I’m quite happy to allow cutouts once we’ve learned to play without them.
We generally speaking ran reasonably straight and cleared the ball really quickly – the fastest for a long time (although dare I say it Will still slowed things down by still taking a step and a back swing – which cannot be part of a scrum half’s clearing pass. It takes time and robs us off the best part of a metre).
We had numbers at the tackle and were reasonably accurate. Sometimes we let them get an advantage – there is a tendency in some circles to teach arriving players to target opposition players, whereas I say target the ball. That’s where the threat always is, rather than for example targeting the guy off to the side a little bit, leaving his hands on the ball.
At last we’re starting to see some signs of just what Sekope Kepu can do in terms of his natural assets. We saw a couple of instances – one in particular where he almost rag-dolled Hibbard, causing a turnover and a try (see below). Full marks to the coaching staff.
The two second rowers continued to make strides. I’ve admired Simmons’ work ethic but doubted his physicality, but he’s getting there. Perhaps he’ll make a liar out of me and really reach the required standard.
James Horwill is playing better but not fantastically well. Brendan Cannon made the point in the commentary that when he first arrived James was a devastating runner. I hope we see it back after he’s had a rest from this year. One thing I’d like to see is a reduction in the penalties he gives away – they’re becoming a problem.
There were a couple of serious contributions by James Slipper which was good and the back row was as it has been. I see Quade Cooper got the man of the match, but once again it could well have been Michael Hooper – he is perpetual motion. It could well have been Isreal Folau or Scott Fardy.
The midfield of Leali’ifano and Ashley-Cooper was very good as were the back three. It’s probably Tomane and Cummins’ best matches in gold. No doubt in large part because Quade Cooper was much, much better. He made the 10% contribution required from the fly half to give the pace and space to those outside him, thereby creating opportunity for them. He’s always been able to do the genius things, but it’s the fundamentals I want to see.
That enabled the whole backline to play well. It gave them advantage line opportunity as it caused the defence to line up one on one, which then gives you a chance of making some yardage.
They did that and then the clear intention without any delay or regard for protecting the ball was to recycle – because I think it’s the responsibility of the ball carrier to recycle the ball and responsibility his team mates to protect it. If we can just get Will’s service faster I think we’re on the way.
I said in a comment on last week’s article that people should not mistake result for performance. However in this case, the result is fantastic and for the first time in a long time we’re heading in the right direction with performance. Well done.
As an aside, I wouldn’t get too carried away with comment about trying to embed a new culture in the team. I think that the development of the culture comes as a development of the team. In striving for excellence in everything we do, it also comes in our individual and team preparation. That pursuit drives a culture and you don’t have to talk about the culture you’re after, it happens.
In the end, talk is cheap and I’d rather see it come. You know if you’ve got it and there’s no doubt competitive people enjoy striving for perfection, that’s part of their nature. So keep pushing the boundaries and I think we’ll get there.
This has been a watershed tour. Full marks to Ewen and his coaching team.
