Author: Mitch Evans

In the previous two segments to this analysis piece, we looked at how Michael Cheika has used his Wallaby squad (forwards and backs) since the last Rugby World Cup. Today, we complete the ‘project’ a little further by deep diving a little further around who was picked, how often and who wasn’t. Breakdown by games played: There are a few different tiers of players that can be dissected here, but realistically there have been 46 games between the RWC and now and we should have a spine of settled players. Discounting players that might have only just fallen into the…

A reminder that I am using this week on GAGR to dig deep into Michael Cheika’s selection strategies over the past RWC cycle.  We took a look at the forward pack yesterday so today we look at the backline. A reminder of the key: Legend: All players highlighted in yellow are currently in the Rugby World Cup squad at the time of writing Players with an asterisk have at least one game confirmed where they were named on the bench but didn’t take the field Players are listed more than once if they have started or come off the bench…

This exercise began following discussions had on the Elite Rugby Banter podcast, as they unpacked the impressive analysis of test match starts per country, provided by Russ Petty (@rpetty80 on Twitter). Looking at and hearing some of that analysis made me want to dive a bit deeper and investigate the bench appearances as well, deciphering just how many options were trialled during this Rugby World Cup cycle under Michael Cheika and, as of 2019, Scott Johnson and Michael O’Connor. All of my data (current up to prior to the Wallaby v Samoa test last weekend) was taken from the Wikipedia…