Here we go again. The much vaunted Australian scrummaging recovery has proven to be illusory.
Our competency in the scrums is about as proficient as Pato Noriega’s command of the English language.
Or more like those exotically named Belgium chocolates the Wallabies will be buying on their way back through Duty Free.
Hard on the outside but soft and creamy in the centre.
How much longer is our scrum going to be the laughing stock of world rugby?
The Welsh offered zilch in most facets of play and were there for the taking. We gave them hope and opportunity through our piss poor scrummaging.
We gave away as many scrum penalties as Le Fuse would in a lifetime!
Weren’t the experienced core of players (and I’m including locks in this equation) who have come back from injury going to rectify what the Poms did to us earlier in the year?
We won the Welsh test and generally it was a reasonable effort but we’re playing the game with one hand tied behind our back.
That’s because we’ve already notionally given away X number of tries/penalty tries/points at scrumtime.
Most of the tight five are there from last year when things were going OK. I don’t think this comes down to the personnel, I think it comes down to the forward coaching. The buck stops there, qué?
We’ve got a northern hemisphere tiger by the tail. It’s the elephant in the room called scrummaging. I think it’s going to dog us all tour.
I’ll leave what I think is going to happen this Saturday to another occasion but first up we’ve got to address the Leicester Tigers this Wednesday morning, our time.
Are we going to be dished up in the scrums this time? Although Leicester will be without their international front row I’d say ‘maybe’ to this and probably to most other games (with the exception of Munster perhaps).
Fortunately we have lots of other strings to our bow and that’s what should save our bacon.
The Springbok Dirties got beaten last year by the Tigers but there is a difference.
The Leicester team that’s likely to take the field on Wednesday will be significantly weaker than last year’s plus I think the Wallabies 2nd XV might be stronger than the Bokke were.
This time none of their English, Argentinian or Italian internationals are available. No Cole, Croft, Parling, Flood, Castrogiovanni, Ayerza, Agullo or Amorosino (or Mauger, Tuqiri or Mefin Davies from last year).
In their place are likely be a combination of First XV, 2nd XV and maybe some Academy reserves.
Leicester haven’t been travelling all that well in the Aviva Premiership and are currently 5th on the table after only winning three out of their seven fixtures to date, although they’ve had success with their two Heineken Cup matches (Scarlets and Treviso).
The Wallabies 2nd XV haven’t played together before so you’d imagine some rustiness in the early stages.
A mixture of old hands and young blood will make for an interesting combination but I think they’ll just have a bit too much class for the Tigers, although their back division has a few quality players and their loosies will be competitive.
I guess we’re all looking forward to the debuts of Scott Higginbotham and Van Humphries in the forwards, and Pat McCabe’s efforts at outside centre.
And let’s hope the scrum goes better than their Saturday counterparts managed to scrabble together.
Wallabies:
15 Peter Hynes, 14 Rod Davies, 13 Pat McCabe, 12 Anthony Fainga’a,11 Lachie Turner, 10 Berrick Barnes (capt), 9 Luke Burgess, 8 Richard Brown, 7 Matt Hodgson, 6 Scott Higginbotham, 5 Rob Simmons, 4 Van Humphries,3 Salesi Ma’afu,2 Huia Edmonds, 1 James Slipper.
Reserves: 16 Saia Fainga’a, 17 Ben Daley, 18 Dean Mumm, 19 Pat McCutcheon, 20 Nick Phipps, 21 Matt Giteau, 22 Luke Morahan.
Leicester Tigers:*
O. Geordan Murphy, N. Scott Hamilton, M. Matt Smith, L. Anthony Allen K. Manu Tuilagi J. Billy Twelvetrees, I. James Grindal, H. Jordan Crane, G. Craig Newby F. Thomas Waldron E. George Shivington, D. El Slater C. Julian White B. George Chuter, A. Pete Bucknall.
Reserves: P. Rob Hawkins, Q. Gaston De-Robertis, R. Steve Mafi, S. Ben Pienaar, T. Jason Spice, U. George Ford, V. Dan Hipkiss.
The game kicks off at 19:30 [GMT] 6.30am [AEDT] and will be broadcast on www.premiershiprugby.tv
*Note: Leicester players will be lettered, not numbered (it’s traditional).
