As I sat last Saturday watching the Brumbies end their title hopes with a rugby version of Hara Kiri, it struck me that I had seen this exact event all too often last season – except with the Wallabies.
The parallels to recent Wallaby defeats were stunning; outmuscled at the breakdown and a backline that when it wasn’t going sideways, squandered the ball with poor kicking. After outlasting some initial bluster, the opposition pinched themselves, and then got on and took the match as it lay garnished on a platter. It was the Tri-Nations and Murrayfield 2009 all over again.
But why should I have been surprised? This much lauded superstar Brumby squad has the core of a Wallaby team that’s made an art-form of squandering chances since 2003. Matt Giteau is a talented footballer who shouldn’t carry the can for a whole team’s performance, but his role as the fly-half common denominator between Wallaby and Brumby under-performances has become impossible to ignore. I suffered a pointless kick-pass too many on Saturday.
Meanwhile, in a match that restored your faith in humanity rugby, a close to no-name Queensland Reds unit chalked up another impressive scalp as they polished off the Super 14 champions and competition leaders. Their successful attacking set up is the source of the first inconvenient truth for Robbie Deans: the dream of the dual play-makers is over.
Australia may have enough small talented five-eighths to make a whole frikken back-line, but that doesn’t make it right. With Genia and Cooper creating opportunities aplenty, the power of Faingaa, Chambers, Ioane and Hynes with the pace of Morahan and Davies is the potent mix that’s been delivering. No room for another little general to confuse or get crowded out.
Need convincing? Re-watch the Wallabies winning the 2001 Tri-Nations and Lions series with Nathan Grey and Dan Herbert outside of Bernie Larkham. Or look at the centre combinations of our Tri-Nations rivals who keep beating us; Nonu and Smith; De Villiers and Fourie.
The 2010 Wallabies won’t have a senior 12 that fits the bill, but while one gets genetically engineered, James O’Connor and Anthony Faingaa have their name in the frame, with Ashley-Cooper’s outside break and fend at 13. Want more bulk at 12? There’s no harder, straighter runner than Ioane and we know how he combines with Cooper, despite this being an unfamiliar channel for the Winger/13.
But even more important than these tactical arguments is the psychology and ethos that lies behind what we saw in Canberra last week and from the Wallabies last year; in the big moments, when the prize is there for the taking, the key executors fail. I still respect and admire Greg Norman as a sportsman, but will never again bet my house on him winning when leading into the final day of a Masters.
This worrying propensity to choke (surely a trait from across the ditch!) has been creeping into other parts of the Aussie sporting psyche (witness Ponting’s Ashes defeats) and needs to be well and truly exorcised from the Wallabies on field decision makers. It is above all of the positional and tactical fears I have for the Wallabies going forward, and I even suspect that much of the Reds success this year is based on the fact that there were literally no expectations on them. Nevertheless, if this Reds team can keep their momentum through the end of the season, then they will have developed a confidence that needs bottling.
In short, my message is this. While the youthful talent, confidence and attacking setup that displayed by the Reds this year is at odds with the previous framework (Barnes and Giteau were the Vice-Captains if you remember…) to continue with what has not worked in the face of what is now successful, is close to a definition of madness. I had another two hours of my life sucked away by that madness on Saturday morning. Please, not again.
