The Roar
The Roar

Advertisement

Very little about Paris worth remembering

12th November, 2012
Advertisement
Wesley Fofana of France scores a try amongst the Wallabies rabble during the France vs Australia international rugby union match at the Stade de France stadium. (AP Photo/Michel Spingler)
Expert
12th November, 2012
147
1641 Reads

It wasn’t quite Armistice Day in Paris when the France-Australia Test kicked off, and while it was by Australian time, there really wasn’t anything worth remembering in Les Bleus’ 33-6 thumping of the Wallabies.

This has been a weird column to put together. It’s not that any of this has never been said before, of course, but it’s certainly becoming a question of how often does the same thing need to be said before the penny drops.

For that reason, I found myself walking away from this piece numerous times since Sunday morning. Where usually these things come together reasonably easily, this latest Wallabies performance has given rise to the two-day post mortem.

Sunday

‘Disappointing’ is a word that will be used a lot to describe the Wallabies performance at Stade de France. So is ‘lacklustre’. I won’t use it, but I bet ‘disgrace’ has made an appearance somewhere by the time you’re reading this.

Up front, it needs to be said that France were simply outstanding. They carried on in that hard-nosed, loose forward-led direct method of operation that very nearly landed them a Rugby World Cup in New Zealand last year.

In Louis Picamoles and Yannick Nyanga, they have easily filled decent portions of the holes left by absent No.8, Imanol Harinordoquy, and inspirational captain and flanker, Thierry Dusautoir.

Picomoles’ own display was as memorable as the Wallabies’ was far from. He was brutal in defence, always looked likely to offload in attack, and showed some shrewd awareness to stroll over for France’s first try for the game.

Advertisement

Even France’s second try came from an awareness of the situation that was considerably better than Australia’s was. Freddy Michalak spied only half an opening and went for it, while “Kurt” Beale stood there and allowed him past. Michalak suddenly found himself in open space with support, to ultimately send Wesley Fofana over.

That moment pretty well summed up the Wallaby performance in general. Where all they had to do was get the ball out of their own territory and defend, the Wallabies did neither very well, presenting Michalak with a broken line of defence and room in behind, which he happily took advantage of to put Fofana away.

Earlier in the game, Michalak potted over one of the least-pressured international drop goals that I think I can recall. The reaction of the Australians was as if they’d never seen a drop goal kicked before, ever, let alone against them.

There was no evidence in the defence that they saw it coming, despite Michalak showing a penchant for sneaky early-game drop goals when playing Super Rugby for the Sharks.

That was the alarm bells ringing for me, right there.

It took until the 77th minutes for the Wallaby scrum to show any semblance of parity with the powerful French pack. However, by that stage, they’d already conceded three scrum penalties and a penalty try.

Any scrum lessons they may have taken away from the All Blacks draw either went missing in transit, or didn’t clear Customs at Charles de Gaulle.

Advertisement

Monday

Another night’s sleep hasn’t changed the result, and yesterday’s realisation has been replaced by the ‘where to?’ questions for England at Twickenham this coming weekend.

You guys will know that I’ve never been an advocate of mass change, or even change for the sake of change, but after consecutive lacklustre displays only distinguishable by the impressive defensive effort against the All Blacks in Brisbane, making no change at all would be a massive mistake.

The likes of Pocock, Ioane, and Timani nearly have to come straight back into the starting side again, and even Steven Moore and Brett Sheehan probably should be promoted from the bench.

The already forward-heavy bench should be re-examined, too, with the addition of the extra bench prop to make a 6-2 split showing nothing to fear in terms of late game creative impact. Even more so when the reserve halfback still cannot get off the pine.

Andrew Logan’s synopsis on the manner in which the Wallabies lost the collision is bang on the money. Perhaps Jake White was onto something last week, even if his appointment of a collisions coach was infamously short-lived.

That loss of the collisions was certainly a key factor, but so was that they often lost the ball in the collision too. In 29 turnovers all up, the Wallabies conceded eight in the ruck contest (France lost four), and crucially, three of them were in the French 22.

Advertisement

The Wallabies hit nearly twice as many breakdown contests as did France, had nine instances of five or more phases (to France’s five), and managed a similar number of offloads. They spent three minutes more in France’s 22 than did Les Bleus in theirs.

On top of 59 percent possession and 58 percent territory, it’s almost unfathomable how the Wallabies failed to fire a shot in attack all game. Berrick Barnes added a little bit when he came on for Mike Harris in the second half, but adding that little bit to an already low base still didn’t amount to any sudden ability to threaten.

Maybe swapping the centres is worth trying. Maybe Barnes at 12 is worth revisiting. Have Harris and Adam Ashley-Cooper done enough to hold their spots? Likewise Dave Dennis? How has the scrum regressed so quickly and so far?

I think Twickenham presents an opportunity to start afresh (again), and one of those times where tweaking something has to be a better option that tweaking nothing.

A successful Spring Tour is still salvageable, but it can’t have started much worse than it has.

close