Regular readers here and in the G&GR forum will know that I’ve so far rested in the pro-Dingo camp (aka ‘visionaries’ or ‘fan-boys’ depending on your point of view). I’m still of the opinion that many of the difficult talent blooding decisions that Robbie has made will benefit Australia for the next decade of World Cup and Tri/Quatro Nations competitions, and that any coach would struggle with the eight or so key names missing from a paper thin player depth when taking on numbers 1 and 2 in the world.
However, this season there have been an accumulation of selection and strategic decisions that, coming to a crescendo last weekend, have led me to a conclusion that seems so extreme, I think it needs airing. These selection and strategy choices are important, because unlike playing performance, they’re unequivocally 100% Dingo’s responsibility – no questions asked.
So leaving aside the performance issues like scrum, line-out, re-starts, defence, attack, handling, breakdowns (where of course there is also a large degree of ownership from the coaching team), here are the key decisions to me that are by any normal rugby logic, unexplainable;
First: bench use (which is part selection, part strategy). Everyone’s talking about my first example; the Moore/Faingaa mystery in Pretoria. A season or two ago, Squeaky Moore came back from the European tour feted as a contender for World XV hooker, and in the few minutes he had in the first half as a blood replacement he showed why.
Now, like Robbie (I think) I’m not a believer in auto-subs if a player is killing it; who says the replacement is going to play better, and it can disjoint team momentum. But on Saturday there was no risk of that as we’d already seen that Moore was clearly no loss vs a flagging Faingaa in a game being played at altitude!
Another player clearly not at his best is Sanchez Genia. He’s still missing that half yard of gas to get through those holes around the ruck and I believe that Burgess’ bustle in both attack and defence would have been a positive impact in the last 20. What you definitely can’t argue with, is that Genia should never have played the whole of (if any) the second test against the poms. He limped from the 20th minute, and Burgess had been part of the best attacking backs performance we’ve seen this season just the week before.
The opposite error has been made with Nathan Sharpe. He and David Pocock are our only two forwards to deliver consistent go forward. More importantly, without him we have no line-out. Witness last weekend when the only man who contested a Wallabies’ line-out on the Boks 10m line was Victor Matfield. I understand Sharpie took an ankle knock earlier in the game, but even if Richard Brown had to wheelbarrow him to those last three line-outs, it would have been worth it. Simply put – those line-outs lost the game.
And so to strategy. Is it just me who has heart failure every time the Wallabies receive a re-start? I’m not talking about the lottery of whether any Australian will cleanly catch the ball, but what they do with it afterward. For some reason this group thinks that one out hit ups in your own 22 is a smart idea. Making a better angle for a clearance I get, thinking you can recycle for 90m every time you get the ball is borderline psychotic; especially with this forward pack, especially with this error rate.
This is even more inexplicable at altitude, where a nice roost will motor you 70m. Why wouldn’t you take it? And why on earth when within 6 points (or even within 10 points) with 10 minutes to go, would you not be ‘going for poles’ when you had the chance? Yes the new ruck interpretations make attacking from the right areas easier, no they don’t change where those right areas are.
So why are these strange decisions being made? Some say it’s because Dingo just doesn’t know what he’s doing – he’s either lost his rugby marbles or never understood the international game in the first place. I don’t go for that; his coaching record just doesn’t tally with it. Too many big games, too many smart decisions time and time again.
Which leads me to this theory that sounds as bizarre to me as it will to you: it’s all deliberate. Not as a form of kiwi sleeper cell sabotage, but rather ‘resistance training’. It’s like sprinting dragging a tyre, jogging with a pack of rocks, or cycling with a brake half on; you do it because it’ll give you a deeper strength for when you really need to compete.
So by this theory, Moore didn’t get game time because we know he’s up to scratch, but without international game time, how is Faingaa going to improve? This investment now means next year we have a genuine 2nd or even 3rd string international hooking option. Same idea on why it’s Sharpie who gets subbed off for Simmons and Mumm. (OK, it doesn’t explain Genia, but bear with me…)
So it is with the barbarian style rugby from everywhere on the field; if you can learn to do it under pressure in your 22 against the best two sides in the world, you can do it against anyone, anywhere. It’s also why in 11 hours of Tri-Nations rugby, the Wallabies have not run one set move; as the game winning try in Brisbane last year proved – it would be far to easy! Hiding behind such scripted moves would just mean we don’t develop the catch-draw-pass skills that generate the All Black’s wealth of tries. We can always add some of these set plays on next year to mix it up a bit.
There it is, my unifying theory on why these otherwise unfathomable decisions are getting made, as crazy as it might sound. Don’t shoot the messenger! If you don’t like this theory though, well, the alternatives listed above are even more depressing.
And here’s the important bit: if there was ever a time for Robbie and his team to spell out just what the plan is to all us punters who make this game what it is, this is it. If die-hards like me are on the precipice and not seeing the vision, then we’ve gotta be approaching critical mass. Now is the time to spell out in clear, non media evading cliches, what the thinking is. What is there to lose? It’s not like Henry and Co will be changing their gameplans in response, they’ve seen more than they need to. The horse has bolted.
So, an invitation. Robbie, if you’d like to you can spell out in your own words on this site where we’re going, and why we’re making these and other decisions. It’s what leaders in organisations do so their constituencies (us) can follow, or at least understand them.
Otherwise for mine, I would rather have seen a history breaking victory on the high veldt, which (despite well documented performance issues) was there for the taking for this team with just a few of the coaching decisions above made differently. Instead, we have yet another ‘almost’ result that ultimately means nothing, and a step closer to the precipice.
