How can one tell a great five-eighth in the making?
Roar Pro
By Greg Russell, 13 May 2009 Greg Russell is a Roar Pro
Waratahs Kurtley Beale is taken in a Hurricanes tackle in the Super 14 rugby match at Westpac Stadium, Wellington, New Zealand, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2009. (AAP Images/NZPA, Ross Setford)
When Bob Dwyer was asked what he thought of the five-eighth of the 2005 Australian Schoolboys rugby team, he quipped “that backup five-eighth looks pretty good.” Dwyer was talking about Quade Cooper. The player he was asked about was Kurtley Beale.
The arrival of Beale, the Aboriginal Wunderkind from Sydney’s western suburbs, via St Joseph’s College, Hunter’s Hill, had been long heralded. Given the observation of Dwyer and others, could it be that Australian rugby was about to get two saviours for the price of one?
The reality hasn’t been straightforward.
There is no doubt that both Beale and Cooper are prodigiously talented and remain considerably interesting prospects. However, I like to say that Cooper is a reincarnation of Carlos Spencer, except that where King Carlos was inconsistent from match to match, Cooper seems to be inconsistent from moment to moment within the one match. Quite literally, he can be dazzlingly brilliant one instant and then awful the next.
Beale also has consistency problems, but his bigger issues are his defence and his lack of physical presence.
Despite these differences, the end result is really much the same: both players struggle to fulfill the classic five-eighth’s role of being able to control a game.
It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see a young kid step out of the shadows and do just this for the Brumbies last weekend.
Of course, those who follow these things closely knew of Matt Toomua before his quality performance against the Blues. It’s not just any player who goes straight from school into the squad of the Brumbies, and then onto their bench (as he did in 2008).
And one should point out that Toomua’s Australian Schoolboys achieved something in 2007 that Beale and Cooper were not able to: they beat New Zealand Schoolboys for the first time since 1997, when a certain Craig Wing and Ryan Cross were the stars of the show.
Indeed, scouts were adamant that the 2007 crop were the best batch of Australian schoolboy rugby union players to emerge in the past decade, with one NRL scout saying of the outside back prospects: “There’s half a dozen who can’t miss.”
One of these, Joseph Tomane, is already a starting player for the Melbourne Storm. But the rest seem to have stayed in rugby, with players like Rob Horne (Waratahs), James O’Connor (Force) and Afusipa Taumoepeau (Brumbies) already having made marks at the top level.
Now we welcome Toomua.
One may contrast the quiet way he has been brought along with all the fanfare surrounding Beale and Cooper. It seems clear to me that their development has suffered from all the attention and weight of expectation.
Of course, it’s very early days yet for Toomua.
But there was a maturity and all-round quality about his performance that we have yet to see from Beale and Cooper. Take Toomua’s dropped goal, for example.
Johnny Wilkinson could hardly have bettered the deliberate planning and clinical execution. As we all know, Wilkinson wasn’t bad at controlling a game.
But perhaps one might better compare Toomua’s understated arrival and composed performance against the Blues with the young Dan Carter. It’s worth remembering that the player who has gone on to become the world’s best rugby player was not considered good enough to make the New Zealand Schoolboys team (trivia question: who kept him out?).
Carter progressed straight to senior ranks in Canterbury, and no matter where he was positioned or whom he came up against, observers kept being struck by the fact that he got the job done, that he didn’t make mistakes, and that he had no weaknesses.
Already one can say that Toomua is more along these lines than Beale or Cooper ever will be.
What are the lessons in all this?
That schoolboy acclaim is far from a sure guide of adult success? That with Toomua at the helm, the Brumbies will beat the Chiefs this weekend?
That with so much young talent coming through, Robbie Deans has picked a great time to become Wallaby coach?
That Queensland are the authors of their own demise by not being able to hang onto their prodigiously talented schoolboy stars (O’Connor, Toomua and David Pocock)?
That there is even more to come from the 2008 Australian Schoolboys, who went one better than the 2007 crop by becoming the first ever team to win on Kiwi soil? That Australian rugby is on the threshold of another era like the early 1980s, when the quality of the backs far exceeds that of the forwards? (notice that almost all of these emerging stars are backs).
I don’t know.
But what I can do is agree with the rest of what Dywer said in 2005: “Things look fantastic.”
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markcxd said | May 13th 2009 @ 5:13am | Report comment
Greg, good article. How true it is of the difference in the development of the three players. Secondly, you cant ask a trivia question like that ! It means its going to be anoying me for ages and therefore ill be searching google for hours trying to find the answer.
Rabbitz said | May 13th 2009 @ 6:52am | Report comment
Does Toouma also sport a ridiculous hairdo? It seems to me that Beale and Cooper are both over-rated and under-performing. And both sport strange hair. I am not suggesting this is a Sampsonesque thing, I believe that they both believe the hype that the media pundits have spouted about them and it shows in their belief that they can get away with looking like a weirdo. Remember Henjak? Where is he now?
The problem with promoting children (yes I mean children) with potential and giving them all the adjulation that entails means that they are unable to handle it and in the long run it reflects in their poor results. It also gives them a falsely inflated ego – thus the hairdo’s.
This does not just apply to Rugby, have a good hard look at the other codes and you will see the same issues, Four Corners anyone?
LeftArmSpinner said | May 13th 2009 @ 7:14am | Report comment
Greg, good article. Beale was done no favours being thrown into the deep end in his first season, and without a backs coach. It is a truly golden era that we are entering. Bring it and the 5th Aust. Super rugby team……….
Hoy said | May 13th 2009 @ 7:51am | Report comment
Maybe it is the way the first two were brought through the rugby from schools straight to super? Toomua(?) was served an albeit small apprenticeship before starting.
That might be the key. Instead of all these so called superstars being walk up starts, I am sure it wouldn’t hurt them to sit and watch for a while. But then, with the young ones these days, they want all they (think they) deserve, and if they don’t start, or are criticised at all for their game, they seem to feel victimised, and leave in a huff to another group who will give them everything they (think they) deserve.
Wtiness half the players dropped from first grade for poor showings in league. They all ask for releases, rather than trying to get back into first grade and proving they can play.
Gits came through club, and I remember watching him and Henjak when they were playing for the Vikings. I thought Henjak’s hair was the most rediculous thing I had ever seen, but I thought he caught my eye more so that Gits as a player. Gits was picked from that team straight to the Wallabies tour at the end of that year, before playing super rugby. But I guess he had a year of grade underneath him.
Larkham had a few years in obscurity before being a superstar and savoiur of the Wallers. Maybe club rugby is the go. Put these superstar youngsters in club rugby and make them control older angrier men in club rugby and see if they can do it, before piling on the plaudits.
Greg Russell said | May 13th 2009 @ 8:34am | Report comment
I would just like to clarify that I do not know the answer to my ‘trivia’ question about who kept Dan Carter out of the NZ Schoolboys … like others, I would be genuinely interested in knowing!
Andrew B said | May 13th 2009 @ 9:04am | Report comment
I don’t disagree that Toomua is a good prospect, but are we comparing one great performance with 2 seasons of ups & downs? Cooper & Beale have both been masterful at times, poor at others. Will you be saying the same thing about Toomua after he has some more game time, and the opertunity to fail?
Terry Kidd said | May 13th 2009 @ 9:15am | Report comment
I’m guessing that Dan Carter would have been schoolboys approx 1998-99? If thats the case would Aaron Mauger have been the player that kept him out?
Sam, please help !!!! If anyone on this site knows the answer then I’m betting it will be Sam.
Brett McKay said | May 13th 2009 @ 9:23am | Report comment
yep, another great read Greg. Toomua has always looked the goods in his short cameos, but I think he’s surprised even the harshest critics with how he’s improved with three starts under his belt.
It’s a fair comment that he’s been able to almost ‘sneak’ into the liemlight, and I think that has plenty to do with how the Brumbies bring in the youngsters. For Toomua, just like Lealiifano, Giteau, and even Larkham before them all, they were able to surround these talented kids with experience, and then just told them to play. If a young kid can be standing at 10 or 12 and look around to see the likes of Gregan, Knox, Howard, and then Larkham himself and Mortlock, and even now with the likes of Gerrard, Fairbanks and Ashley-Cooper, it’s a pretty good way to come through.
Toomua and Lealiifano have also had the advantage of being practically unknown in comparison to the hype that preceeded both Cooper and Beale. This time last year Toomua was playing in club land, and is probably bracing himself to return there next month. There’s no doubt that’s helping with his development, as Hoy suggests.
Mentioning Fairbanks, Toomua’s biggest test – apart from lining up against the likely All Black first-five – will be not having Fairbanks outside him this weekend. Tyronne Smith reminds me a lot of Timana Tahu, both have the ability to play inside- but are better suited to outside-centre.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Brumbies balance Giteau and the two young bucks next year. If the rumours of Fairbanks going to Japan are true (and I hope it’s not the case, because he’s back to his best again), then perhaps they’ll play one of the youngsters at 12 and the other on the bench. I’m also thinking that Lealiifano, being Melbourne raised, may well become a target for the new team for 2011.
Spiro Zavos said | May 13th 2009 @ 10:06am | Report comment
Greg has got to the heart of the matter with this interesting analysis of the mature five-eights play of Matt Toomau. The point about Kurtley Beale and Quade Cooper is that they overplay their hand too much, try to do too much, as a first five-eighths. Absolutely brilliant running and stepping five-eighths, who can also control a game, are a thing of the long past days of the Welsh wizards in the 1950s.
Every great five-eighths in modern times (with one exception, Stephen Larkham), Barry John, Mark Ella, Hugo Porta, Grant Fox, Jonny Wilkinson and Daniel Carter have been controllers of the game. Of course they could make breaks. But generally the running was after several phases or the result of positioning themselves to break when play has fractured.
It is called ‘underplaying’ their hand. Robbie Deans has been particularly good at coaching this into his five-eighths. The Quade Cooper playing for the Wallabies is a different and more effective beast than the Quade Cooper playing like a headless chook for the Reds.
This is the reason why I believe Deans will play Berrick Barnes at what New Zealanders call first five-eighths this season with Matt Giteau at second five-eighths. Personally I’d like to see Giteau playing as a winger in the Shane Williams style and have James O’Connor playing outside Barnes.
I don’t think it’s been an accident that the Hurricanes, for instance, have played more effective rugby since Willie Ripia, a five-eighths who underplays his hand while kicking and passing with great effective, has been put into the key controlling position.
The place for the stepper and brilliant individualists is second five-eighths, in my view. I once tried to convince John Hart when he was the All Black coach that this is where Carlos Spencer should be played. Hart dismissed my argument. But i reckon I was right, as results in big matches showed where Spencer could not think his way out of problems and difficulties in the way the great five-eighths can.
So it will be interesting to see what the Brumbies do with Toomua when Giteau arrives next year.
If Greg is right, and I think he is totallt correct in my view, then they’ll play Giteau outside Toomua.
Conor said | May 13th 2009 @ 10:14am | Report comment
Andrew B,
with you mate,
Toomua had a good game but thats one, beale and cooper who struggle at times have stilll put in great performances for their clubs at some point, or in coopers case even for the wallabies on last years end of season tour and in the first 4 rounds of this season everyone was saying how far cooper had came. And beale was great last year for the tahs especially in the final before he was injured.
I reckon you just cant judge such a young player so early on in their careers.