It's kind of stupid saying Phipps should get Hooper's approval for quick taps. Kinda defeats the point of a quick tap doesn't it? I'm sure they speak pre-game if they should do quick taps and in what contexts. Unless something good always comes out of the quick taps Phipps will get criticised but don't see much praise for it when it comes off like against France.
It seems they are trying to play an up-tempo game from several angles, and this is part of it. If it was specifically NOT part of the plan, I'm sure Hooper, McKenzie, McKay et al would be getting in players' ears to tell them to stop it.
But yeah, there will always be conjecture over these. I think we might be slightly overplaying the quick taps at the moment.
It's like the whole Phipps / Foley thing - if we play at speed, the error rate can be a bit higher. If we take 5 seconds longer at many breakdowns, the defensive line realigns so much better, and against the ABs, Bokke, Argentina and any other top tier nation, you'll struggle to crack it. So we have to accept the pros and cons a bit. I like that we are trying harder to play attacking rugby, and let's face it, in the greasy conditions we created plenty of chances from it. It's just the finesse of the final execution and some of the details that are not quite there yet. I much prefer this ethos to a safety-first, kick it away, chase it badly, get messed up by the counter-attack and so on that we have seen too much in recent years. In the long run, this more positive approach will pay dividends, but it takes time to get all the players believing and trusting the style, and each other, and executing it perfectly.
