It’s been a very busy day for me, but throughout the day my mind has wandered to the Italy v. Wallabies match, last night in Florence. “What, in Heaven’s name, am I going to write about the match,” I wondered.
Well, here goes. It was an okay match. There was pace and intent. There was some genuine physicality, particularly at the tackle contest.
The Wallabies were average, with some improvement over the last week’s efforts. We had more enthusiasm, more speed off the mark, in both attack and defence. We made numerous half-chances — or, perhaps more accurately, quarter-chances — to break the Italian defensive line. I thought that our defence had much more urgency than last week; we “got off the line” much better, but we still lacked any real sting. Our scrum struggled again, but not nearly as much as the referee thought. Our lineout was average also, with TPN struggling with his throw (as he did against Munster on Tuesday night). My guess is that he is not yet fully recovered and his throw is hampered. Our goal-kicking was vastly improved, but not nearly so much as to expect Berrick Barnes to kick one from 53 metres. (What sort of decision was that, to choose to kick for goal?) We lack attention to detail and it is the responsibility of the coaching staff to fix this. I’ll expand later in the article.
Italy were average also. There scrum was okay, but reasonable refereeing would have restricted their advantage somewhat. Their lineout was okay. Their tackling was good, but they have always struggled with ‘defence’, as distinct from ‘tackling’. Our total lack of attention to detail meant that the Wallaby attack never asked the difficult questions that a competent ‘ensemble’ attack can pose.
The referee was well below average. He had no comprehension at all on the activity in the front row of the scrums. Castrogiovanni did not scrummage ‘straight’ for the entire night, but Slipper and then Robinson were called out as the culprits. He called forward passes that weren’t, and let go some that were. Perhaps he struggles with faulty eyesight, because he made two outrageous errors which resulted in tries — thank goodness it was one try to each team. Then he asked the TMO for a decision — the commentators informed us that this was for an examination of what had occurred ‘in-goal’. The only thing that happened ‘in-goal’, and this was 100 per cent clear, was that Robert Barbieri, the replacement Italian flanker, scored a try. Thankfully, the TMO was not similarly handicapped, and instructed the referee accordingly.
I said that I would elaborate on our lack of attention to detail. It can be a bit technical and long-winded but I’ll give it a go — just to get it off my chest. To begin with, let’s take a look at support play. If our team has the ball for, say, forty minutes, and remembering that an individual player would have the ball in his possession for an absolute maximum of two minutes, then for almost half the game, the role of each player is ‘support’ — either as a primary support or as a secondary. If I am in support of a ball-carrier, I must give him ‘room to play’ as he wishes, but remain on hand, to assist as and when needed.
This assistance may be before the tackle (for a pass) during (for forward drive and/or clean out), or after (for an off-load). If the ball-carrier makes a line-break, the support player will then be available to provide further options. The single option taken by the vast majority of our players, however, is to immediately take a position in the new ‘attacking’ line, conceding that a tackle is imminent and that we cannot lose the ball. By the way, this is light years away from “playing what’s in front of you”. I can understand, to some extent, the frustration of our support players, since about 19 out of 20 of our tackled players have changed their line of run to ‘even more across field’, immediately before the tackle. This makes quality support play most difficult, even when, and if, our players have this intent.
Let’s have a look at the scrum then. We were dished up a few weeks back by a tight-head who ‘bored in’ on our hooker — remember Owen Franks’s effort in Hong Kong? The same thing happened again yesterday, with Castrogiovanni. How come we haven’t been able to sort this out? Some years ago, back in 1983, “Topo” Rodriguez — at the time, a Puma — tore our scrum to bits with this tactic, in the first test in Brisbane. He couldn’t do the same a week later in Sydney, even with three successive scrums on our five-metre line. Why not? Because we did something about it, that’s why not. This is the way it’s supposed to work; not to just bumble along and hope that it doesn’t happen again.
I’ll finish soon, but I just want to have a quick look at ‘decoy runners’. They are a bit of an excuse for poor ‘catch-and-pass’ skills — just as the ‘miss pass’ is — but they have a place. Why then, especially since we use the tactic frequently, can we not execute accurately and legally? Instead, we have two alternatives in our repertoire: either we execute so far from the defence that there is ample time to recover from the ‘decoy’, or we actually obstruct a tackler — and incur a penalty. Nathan Sharpe did exactly that yesterday. The idea is to attract a defender and to lure him off-balance, not to blatantly obstruct him.
These are only a few of the many — mostly small, but all important — details that are absent from our game. I have been questioning such lack of progress for over 15 months now and I thought a few weeks back, after the Sydney and Hong Kong All Blacks games, that I could see a glimmer of light at the end of this enormously long tunnel… but obviously, I was wrong. I can’t think of any progress made and I can’t think of even one pressing problem that has been answered. It appears that neither our coaching staff nor our administration has any stomach for the solutions.
Italy are a competent enough team, but they are ranked No. 12 in the world. Among the very top echelon of teams, they just don’t rate. We were only a little better!
