Mark Chisholm could bring Wallabies a quick fix in second row
* Wayne Smith
* From: The Australian
* June 15, 2010 12:00AM
THE Wallabies front row understandably is under the spotlight leading into Saturday's second Test against England in Sydney but the fastest fix to Australia's scrum problems using existing personnel might just be a change in the second row.
Australia started the Perth Test with Nathan Sharpe packing as the right-hand second-rower behind tighthead Salesi Ma'afu, with Dean Mumm on the left-hand side behind loosehead Ben Daley.
Shoulder injuries have tended to make Sharpe a reluctant tighthead lock and he would always play on the left-hand side whenever selected in tandem with Dan Vickerman or James Horwill, both locks capable of providing solid backing to the tighthead.
Young Reds prop James Slipper earned widespread praise for his performance off the bench, initially as a replacement for Daley at loosehead. He then switched to the tighthead side once Ma'afu was sin-binned in the 68th minute for repeated scrum offences, with a barely rested Daley resuming duty on the left-hand side.
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But as stoutly as Slipper performed on debut, two things acted in his favour. The first was that virtually as Ma'afu was making his way off the ground, Bath prop David Wilson, who played tighthead against the Wallabies at Twickenham last November, was sent on to replace Tim Payne as the England loosehead.
That meant that Slipper, at tighthead, was scrummaging against a specialist tighthead playing out of position.
But perhaps more importantly, Mark Chisholm was sent on to take over from Dean Mumm in the Australian second row.
A muscular 112kg and one of the strongest players in the Wallabies squad, Chisholm immediately packed into the scrum on the right-hand side behind Slipper, with Sharpe switching to loosehead lock. Using this formation, the seven-man Australian pack twice withstood the eight-man England shove.
In Horwill's continued absence, Chisholm is the only specialist tighthead lock in the Australian Test squad and his 112kg could help to shore up the right-hand side of the scrum.
But weight alone will not solve Australia's scrummaging problems. Cameras at Subiaco Oval on Saturday night revealed that loosehead Daley and hooker Fainga'a were angling left-to-right while tighthead Ma'afu employed a right-to-left technique. That split the Australian scrum, completely diffusing what weight was coming from the back five.
I own mortgage on a chair there.
