I think Ewen summed it up reasonably well – happy with the intent regarding the broadening of attack, but disappointed with the decisions and execution and the subsequent missed opportunities. What he didn’t say was that he was frustrated at the physical mismatch; there appears a marked difference in the individual ability of both teams to go forward in contact and stop go forward.
A discussion on the officiating is for another time, but hard to disagree with Ewen’s assessment.
I’m unsure how to articulate it, but it was like the Wallabies brought a bunch of knives to a gun fight – man on man who would you take from the Australian side into the NZ side ……. who could you take and drop into the current all black team and the all blacks would benefit from it?
From the weekends performance even our best performers would lose out;
- Genia v Smith – Smith
- O’Connor v Smith – Smith
- Hooper v McCaw – McCaw
- Ashley-Cooper v Smith – Smith
- Folau v Savea – harder, maybe Folau would get the nod here but there would be a bee’s pecker in it
To be fair you could line up most international teams against the All Blacks and it would be just as difficult.
Of concern is that you look at the current Wallabies and you don’t see a Larkham or Kafer steering the ship, a Grey or Cockbain belting the bejesus out of anything not in gold, a Kefu or Finnegan steam rolling the defence ….. you see a team for the most part filled with good Super rugby players and a few experienced test players who are willing these young players to step up and consistently compete with them at the next level.
My point being that until these younger players grow or new players are found, both of which will take time (and another level of competition), the only way I can see the Wallabies winning in the short term is by adopting a game plan built around territory (we have the basis of this with a solid kicking 9, 10, 12 and 15 – who just need to improve their consistency) and tenacity in defence/contact (I’m not sure what or who is the answer here, but with the exception of Alexander aggressively belting guys on suspicion early on and Hooper playing above his weight, I don’t know if the selected personal can consistently make the required impact).
In effect you reduce the game to a wrestle. In the background you continue to work hard to improve set piece and to develop the attacking flair, structures, decision making and skill that can generate go forward and create scoring opportunities.
I hate writing ‘reduce the game to a wrestle’ but with core skills not being presence enough of the time; see Mowan one on one miss against an across field running Dagg with ball in the wrong arm (that’s Christmas for a back rower), Genia’s box kick to Dagg unpressured and on the full in their 22, and getting charged down twice, Toomua’s simple miss on Smith from the line out or his 1st phase attack bounce pass to Casper, Mogg’s kick not out from a penalty or his out on the full from general play – I’m not sure what other options are available. You are never going to alleviate all of the mistakes but these simple ones, ones that your u15 coach would go nuts at you about, just have to vanish.
On the plus side, there are glimpses of what the Wallabies can do; Mogg’s contested kick chase – one of which resulted in a turnover, the forwards keeping the ball off the ground with quality offloads, some hit back attack and tempo changes by Genia that created space on the edges, forwards running from the base and getting good go forward, Toomua’s dominant tackle and good reaction by the defenders to effect a turnover, short restarts to Folau, long starts to Smith with good pressure resulting in LO in attacking half ….. simple things that have to become the norm rather than the exception.
Simple things that have to become the norm rather than the exception.
