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In terms of aesthetics, there’s no point calling the Wallabies’ 14-13 win over Argentina in Perth on Saturday night, with the Swan River falling from the sky, something it’s not.
There’s winning ugly, and then there’s the grotesteque, wart-faced, horrendously disfigured older sister of winning ugly.
Ewen McKenzie’s first win as Wallabies coach was so ugly, that if born in a hospital, the doctor would slap the parents.
It was horrible. However, a win is a win.
Before the Test, I wrote down four points of improvement that I wanted to see from the Wallabies in Perth.
I very deliberately didn’t include much of an attack focus in these points, primarily because a mistake-free, flowing, and accurate point of attack simply wasn’t something that could be found in just a week.
Moreover, I knew it had been chucking it down in Perth for most of the week. McKenzie had already hinted at playing a territory game after the South Africa loss in Brisbane; the weather in Perth just locked this in.
I’ll also add that focussing on these four points today does not overlook the commitment the Argentineans played with, nor the almighty scare they gave the Wallabies. They play a simple game themselves, and they do it quite well. Their involvement in The Rugby Championship is already paying dividends.
Back five scrum engagement
In scribbling this point down, I was particularly hoping to see a better engagement height from the Wallabies locks, and a more concerted shove from the second row, and from Ben Mowen at No.8.
I wrote down “shoulders up, arse down” as a pointer for the locks’ engagement height.
Those of you that follow me on Twitter might have noticed I used this same descriptor while watching ITM Cup games on Saturday, where the pre-engagement position of Kiwi locks was the complete opposite of the ‘arse up’ position of the Wallabies last week against South Africa.
Happily, in the first half at least, the back five did scrummage a lot better than the previous week, and overall, the Wallabies scrum held up reasonably well.
The scrum problems surfaced again after the break, though, and most of fingers of blame have been pointed to tighthead Ben Alexander again, who was replaced in the 59th minute after a couple of scrum penalties.
The Pumas were certainly the dominant pack by this stage.
I’m not going to absolve Alexander of blame, but I don’t believe he was the sole problem either.
For the first ten, maybe even fifteen minutes he was on, I was rather disappointed with Sitaleki Timani’s input into the scrum, or more accurately, his lack thereof.
Timani’s pre-engagement height on the tighthead side was actually quite good during this time, but somehow, he would end up way too high, with the result that he was only maintaining contact with the bottom of his shoulder and his chest.
With next to no contact, and a similar amount of leg drive, it was no wonder Alexander ahead of him was going backwards.
Just prior to being replaced, Alexander was rightly penalised for popping up in the scrum, while the Argentinean pack drove the Wallabies back almost ten metres from halfway.
Alexander was lifted off his feet completely, but Timani had essentially popped out, too.
In Sekope Kepu’s first scrum, Timani did the same thing again: started low, and packed way too high.
After that, and I don’t know whether it was a message from the coaches or from the three blokes in front of him, Timani managed to lower his engagement height, maintain it, and even started to drive through.
For the last fifteen or so minutes, the scrum looked relatively decent, with the Sunday comments putting this down to the replacement of Alexander with Kepu.
The pack was again “scrummaging as an eight,” as Gordon Bray noted earlier in the game, and it was certainly an improvement on the week before.
However, for the biggest human in the Wallabies squad, and for a guy who had a genuine impact in defence when he came on, it continues to bewilder me why Timani is such an inconsistent scrummaging lock.
Effective backrow cohesion
This one, for me, was going to be about the back three working together as a unit, both in attack and defence.
I wasn’t thinking of them having to co-exist in each other’s pockets (why don’t modern rugby shorts have pockets anymore?), but I was wanting more from them as a division within the team.
I don’t know that this was an area of improvement on Saturday night, rather just more of what we saw last week. And perhaps that means this is as cohesive as these three get.
As per last week, Scott Fardy and Ben Mowen did seem to combine well, and they looked more coordinated again than last week. Michael Hooper seems to prefer to do his work on his own, often coming in from behind the tackle or the ruck to sniff and hunt for loose ball.
Fardy and Mowen, though, were often stationed side-by-side in defence.
While Fardy probably shades his Brumbies and now Wallabies Captain a tad, both players are very good over the ball.
The common perception, watching these two on Saturday night, was that one would go into the tackle low, with the other coming in over the top.
I wouldn’t have thought one tackled or rucked more than the other, but the stats sheets I’ve glanced at indicated that Fardy made more tackles, while Mowen hit more rucks.
In attack, the tended to support each other well in the carrier and cleanout roles and this is something they’ve done well all year for the Brumbies, too. They obviously have a decent combination in general play, and it’s coming through now in a Wallabies jumper.
Hooper, having not played with either player since the middle of last year, just doesn’t have that same combination or timing with Fardy and Mowen yet, and that’s probably understandable.
Better work off the ball
I used the example last week of Israel Folau and Adam Ashley-Cooper, who I said “dropped out of the play completely” after putting James O’Connor into space down the right flank.
In Perth, the conditions were always going to severely curtail the number of linebreaks requiring support, but I think overall, the ball carrier was supported quite well.
The work off the ball was definitely better against Argentina, than against South Africa the week before.
Nic White generally had running or pick-and-drive options whenever he needed them, and the ball carrier generally had a lot more support in terms of following cleanout runners.
Pods of players were prevalent throughout. White’s kicking game was generally aided well – bar one charge down – by the effective use of blockers.
In the lead-up to the Test, White spoke ahead of his debut start of Mowen the Captain’s requirement for everyone on the field to get in and “do the shitters”, the one percenters that no-one likes doing but when done well, can have a major bearing on the result.
I’d have to say this is something the Wallabies did well, particularly in second half where they defended for what felt like the entire forty minutes.
They got in and did the hard work, and kept the Pumas in their own half, despite the momentum Argentina seemed to gain as the match went on. This was good to see, and this is something Wallabies fans can be impressed with in an otherwise unimpressive game.
Every midfield kick a contest
Too often this international season, we’ve seen the Wallabies letting midfield bombs and clearing kicks go to ground, and so making a contest of every kick was the final point I noted down.
In attack, this had to equate to an excellent kick-chase, and in defence, it needed to be things like protection for the catcher, clear communication in traffic, and so on.
On this point, I think the Wallabies were better, but still a long way off brilliant. Certainly, the kick-chase element showed improvement and for that, wingers James O’Connor and Nick Cummins led the way.
Their enthusiasm to get through on the Argentinean catchers created pressure at times, and in the conditions, it just showed an attitude that the Pumas weren’t going to get any easy exits from their own half.
Most Wallabies kicks were known about ahead of time, and so there generally was always someone chasing through.
This sounds like an obvious thing, but it’s not been obvious enough for the Wallabies to do consistently in the first three games of The Rugby Championship.
Communication on reception was OK, but there still a few occurrences of the man coming toward the ball from the back pulling out and leaving the man coming back with the ball to rush the catch. O’Connor doing this to Kane Douglas was one that stuck in the memory, but there were one or two others as well.
I need to give Fox Sports commentator Greg Martin a wrap on this last point, after he made the entirely valid point in the post-match that it’s inconceivable why rugby hasn’t tried to take advantage of the abundant expertise available via Australian Rules football.
With the expansion of AFL in this country over the last 20 years, kicking and catching kicks, and all the communication that goes with both is one area of rugby where the Wallabies should have a significant advantage.
Yet the Wallabies still don’t have a kicking/skills coach, and the All Blacks continue to reap the benefits of the services of their AFL-trained mentor, Australian Mick Byrne.
The penny has to drop at some point.