On a beautiful Brisbane Saturday afternoon Churchie played Gregory Terrace in the GPS schoolboy competition. While you couldn’t fault the commitment of the boys, a group of G&GR blazers watching it commented more than once on the lateral width the teams tried to play, with little or no forward punch first.
“So schoolboy” we thought.
And then we watched the Wallabies do exactly the same thing against the Springboks that night.
For the first ten minutes of the test, you felt that things just might be different this time. Looking across the Wallabies, every spot had someone in it that you were happy for the ball to go to. It was all fresh and shiny – until the Springboks decided not to cooperate.
With the team he’d chosen and marching orders he’d given, it’s hard to know what Michael Cheika thought might have been different last night. With both Hooper and Higginbotham playing wide, the schmozzle every pundit had feared at the breakdown took just minutes to materialise. Attacking opportunities regularly snuffed out and shock horror – Higgers hooked at half time.
With Genia, Cooper and Giteau we’d feared a deep, cross field pattern of play that yet again came to pass. When Toomua and Phipps sped up and flattened the attack in the second half, suddenly there was more threat.
Otherwise the Wallabies answer for the Boks brick wall was to do more of what they’d already been doing, just faster – eventually keeping hold of 62% possession. And that’s a worry, because only a few weeks ago another Michael Cheika coached side tried the exact same thing and came up woefully short against a clinical team who also decided not to play ball.
After that Waratahs-Highlanders semi-final, Michael Cheika admitted the failings of the whole approach; that it was limited and had been ‘worked out’. I’m desperately searching for evidence that the same faulty gameplan isn’t being de facto implemented at the Wallabies.
In this search, there are signs I like the look of have come from the Wallabies. First is that far from the Wallabies train on camps and ‘Sunday sessions’ being cosy get togethers, word is that from a fitness perspective the players were ‘flogged’.
In the past the thinking had always been that by this time in the season there was no way a ‘base layer of fitness could be improved upon’ leading into international season. The Wallabies managing to chase down that score deficit in the final 15 of a test match shows the benefit of what you can do with fitness in this period.
Another sign is seriousness with which mental attitude is being taken. Wallaby squad members are being subjected to professional personal interrogations in secret locations to examine their motivation and commitment. We seem to be finally graduating from the ‘she’ll be right’ and Hungry Jacks at 4am school of mental preparation.
And then there was the lineout. Far from the shambles of the Waratah’s semi final, we had a slick, functioning line-out that even managed to pilfer two South African throws, while accommodating the earthbound Will Skelton.
All good things, but they are – let’s be honest – the basics. The basics done well, at pace and with power got the job done for the Tahs in 2014, but weren’t enough in 2015. Can the Wallabies add a layer of guile with just three more matches to play before the World Cup?
Place yer bets.
