Apologies for the lateness of my view on the Australia versus Ireland match. I have been in Texas, USA, conducting Coaching Camps and Workshops and have only just now been able to watch the match. After having read a fair bit of comment, I was expecting to see a rout by the Irish but, instead, I saw more of what we’ve seen from this Wallabies team for most of the last few years. Indeed it was only in the last two Tri Nations matches that we thought that we were seeing the emergence of a new-look Wallabies team – one playing with passion from minute one to minute eighty. We were wrong – this was more of the same!
After each of the Texas camps, we asked players and coaches to give us words or phrases that they thought defined the performances that Bob Dwyer Rugby Workshops had been teaching and exhorting, and we asked that, in preparing future practice sessions, they take care to ensure that such qualities would be demanded from their own players. We listed the following: dynamic, urgency, support, pace, technique, aggression, no hesitation, intensity, no ‘stop-start’ game, no static play, communication, enthusiasm. All were accurate – we had frequently used these words to describe and demand accurate performance from the players. Then came one word that perhaps encapsulates all the others– ‘relentless’.
Alas, the Wallabies were none of the above in last weekend’s game, at least until the final ten minutes, when we saw the urgency and enthusiasm (perhaps desperation) that had been needed throughout. The time for all of the above is from the referee’s first whistle, not just before his last. Instead we were treated to a series of attempted flukey plays, the ones that may give you a score without hard work.
Most comment that I have read has blamed the forwards and they must take their share, but I blame the backs also, and maybe more so. Our attack was totally lacking in quality. Quality attack asks questions of the defence and we asked virtually none. No numbers in motion around the ball-carrier to provide the small time or space that great players can use. No patience to build from each small gain, so that the final breach and score can be achieved. Such is the honesty of effort on which true rugby is based. We wanted the cheap, easy way out. It’s a far cry from Brad Thorn’s response after another All Blacks last-quarter comeback last year: ‘We knew that if we all did our own little jobs well, the result would come.’
Small gains from our potentially match-winning backs can be built upon by the forwards – if we ever give any credence at all to quality support – and in turn open final opportunity for the backs again. The backline gave virtually no such gains back to the forwards, at least until the game was lost. A performance must be built on such foundations, but with none, we could not stand up under pressure. Nor should we!
Thank goodness Alan Gaffney is returning to Australia. We may yet again see the quality backline ensemble play that was once the hallmark of Wallabies and the envy of the rest of the rugby world.
Now to our forwards. Phil Kearns mentioned in commentary that the late David Brockhoff would have been distressed at the lack of accurate body-height and aggression at the tackle. True indeed, and so also would his disciple, Jake Howard, who would never have permitted such heresy during his time with any team. James Horwill’s strategy was to turn his back on the tackle and this was met with the response it deserved. I fear that the change of captaincy may have been ill-conceived! Can I say it yet again: quality attack requires numbers at the tackle with urgency and aggression, supporting good body-position and leg-drive. This will produce quick ball, no matter the opponent or the referee, and create space. Urgent realignment will allow the productive use of this space.
To me, the Wallabies’ performance smacked of a lack of genuine respect for the undoubted ability of our opponents. Rocky Elsom was quoted during the week as saying that the Ireland team contained ‘too many quality players to be disregarded’. What misguided fool ever thought otherwise?
