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After their loss to the Springboks last weekend, the Wallabies need to beat the Pumas this week to avoid the wooden spoon in The Rugby Championship. That’s not going to be easy. Here are my thoughts on some key discussion points.
Lack of balance in game plan
The Springboks’ dominance in the first half of the match effectively ended any chance of a Wallaby challenge.
The Springboks had 64 percent of possession in that first half, which meant the Wallabies had to attempt 103 tackles in the half, compared to only 22 for the Springboks.
However, despite that massive imbalance in the statistics, it’s not correct to say the Wallabies couldn’t get their hands on the ball in the first half.
The Wallabies simply decided not to have the ball – they started with the ball 28 times in the half, only six less than the Springboks, but kicked it away on 17 occasions – or 61 percent of their possessions – while the Springboks only kicked 11 times, or 32 percent of their possessions.
In 24 of their 28 possessions (86 percent) the Wallabies didn’t retain the ball through two phases! It was the 22nd time the Wallabies had possession in that first half before they completed a second phase.
On the back of poorly executed kicks the Wallabies didn’t play field position – they just gave the ball to the Springboks to use and the Wallabies were so predictable that the Springboks had up to five players back to receive kicks.
With that many players out of the front line in defence, the Springboks were short in their defensive line and the Wallabies needed to change the balance of their game plan and hold the ball a little more to try and take advantage of those opportunities.
We don’t know whether the coaches gave strict instructions to kick out of their half every time or gave the players scope to change that plan dependent on what happened on field.
Whichever the game plan was, it didn’t work and the plan was obviously changed at halftime to provide a more balanced approach.
But by then the damage had already been done.
Time for Will Genia to start
Nic White was obviously tasked with executing a game plan that didn’t make a lot of sense and he seemed to follow that game plan strictly.
As I said, we’ll never know whether he was given any scope to not kick dependent on circumstances and he shouldn’t be blamed for following the game plan.
However, I’m sure he wasn’t given instructions to execute as poorly as he did – I rated eight of his ten kicks as poor.
With a forward pass, throwing an intercept (that was fortunately put down by the Springboks) and a penalty kick not out, he didn’t have a great 40 minutes.
Will Genia benefitted from the change of game plan that was implemented at halftime but his execution was also much better than White.
The Wallabies are a much better team with Genia on the field and I expect he will start alongside Quade Cooper this week.
Cooper played well and was selected as the players’ player – I rated him in the top three Wallaby performers.
The first Springbok try
There’s been a lot of comment online and on social media regarding Cooper’s missed tackle on Adriaan Strauss that led to the Springboks’ first try.
It’s always interesting to see how people can have such different perspectives on what happened.
The first issue with this try was that the Wallaby forwards didn’t realign correctly and the Springboks had three forwards running on to the ball just metres out from the try line, Tendai Mtawarira, Francois Louw and Strauss.
Ben Alexander lined up on Mtawarira but that left Cooper with two forwards to defend, as you can see in the freeze frame image below.
In the image, the ball has just passed across Mtawarira but Louw and Strauss are both live options to receive the ball – Cooper had to make a split-second decision who would receive the ball before trying to make the tackle on that player.
No matter who the Wallaby flyhalf chose, the forwards should never leave him in this situation; having to defend multiple forward runners anywhere on the field, but particularly right on the tryline.
If Alexander had pushed up and across earlier he may have been able to cover Louw but, as you can see from the image below, Alexander stayed back near the line and didn’t push across, leaving Cooper to deal with both Louw and Strauss.
The second issue is that the other Wallabies in the defensive line took one step off the try line and stopped, as you can see in the following image:
The broken defensive line wasn’t caused by Cooper rushing out of the line – it was caused by the rest of the line not moving forward with him.
You’re never going to stop a try by staying back near the line as occurred here. In both of the next two images you can see Strauss is already powering to the line, with the other Wallabies a metre at most off the try line.
The whole defensive line needed to meet the attacking line, where Cooper did to have any chance.
The third issue was Cooper guessing incorrectly which Springbok would get the ball. Contrary to what some claim, Cooper didn’t go for an intercept.
Instead, he guessed Louw on the inside would receive the ball and he tackled him, as you can see in the image below.
Of course Strauss received the ball on the outside and Cooper had tackled the wrong player, although I’d always encourage a defender to take the inside man.
Better to take someone than come up completely empty or stay back near the line.
The miss was certainly Cooper’s and according to some, Matt Toomua or Bernard Foley would probably have made that tackle on Strauss!
In reality, this try was as a result of the failure of all elements of the Wallabies’ defensive line rather than being Cooper’s fault alone.
Intentional or not, intended outcome or not – it doesn’t matter
Michael Hooper received a yellow card for his tackle on Eben Etzebeth but many have questioned whether the tackle was dangerous.
The laws say a dangerous tackle occurs where one player lifts another off the ground and they then land on their head or upper body.
I’ve seen comments that Etzebeth jumped into the tackle and that Hooper didn’t lift him as he was already off the ground when Hooper made contact.
Etzebeth actually tried to step inside Hooper and had one foot firmly on the ground when Hooper made contact, as you can see in the image below, so Hooper was responsible for lifting him off the ground.
However, Etzebeth was off balance as a result of his step and that was what caused him to flip vertically as he did.
I don’t think there was any intention from Hooper to flip Etzebeth.
Once a player commits an act of dangerous play the referee can apply different sanctions – a penalty alone or a penalty and a yellow or red card.
Which option they should take in which circumstances is not spelt out in the laws and this is where the precedent of how referees enforce the laws comes into play.
Anybody who wants to justify or criticise decisions based purely on the wording of the laws doesn’t understand there’s more to how the laws operate in the game than words in a book.
Nowhere in the laws is there any mention of the intention of the player who committed the offence or what the outcome was, but these are factors that referees take into account when deciding which sanction to impose.
There is little margin for error with dangerous play and the tackle met the definition of being dangerous.
In awarding the yellow card, the referee said to Hooper, “I don’t think it’s intentional but it is dangerous”.
In circumstances where a player is tipped into a vertical position, as Etzebeth was, you’ll often see a red card issued.
Hooper hasn’t been cited, which could only occur if the citing commissioner deemed the offence to have warranted a red card.
The decisions of both the referee and the citing commissioner were correct.
Surely no one will try to argue Flip van de Merwe shouldn’t have received a card – the question is which colour?
It was clearly dangerous play under the laws and at the time I thought a red card was warranted, as it looked intentional and he made significant contact with Joe Tomane.
The citing commissioner has subsequently confirmed he was of the same view and van de Merwe looks likely to receive a suspension.
The Springboks need to fix their discipline, because that’s two matches in a row where one of their players has led with their forearm and received a card.
Sitaleki Timani received a yellow card when he charged into a ruck without using his arms. This is specifically defined in the laws as dangerous play.
Again the law doesn’t mention anything about intentions or the outcome of the offence, so it’s not relevant whether Timani hit his own man or in fact hit any target at all.
It’s the same as throwing a punch which doesn’t connect or does little damage – it’s still dangerous play.
In just about every case where a player charges into a ruck without using arms, like Timani did, a yellow card is issued, so there should be no surprise he received one.
Restart strategy
Tomorrow I’ll analyse what the Wallabies were trying to achieve with their kickoff strategy against the Springboks.
Defensive structure
On Thursday, in my video analysis, I’ll show you why the Wallabies’ defensive structure is so passive and vulnerable using their patented ‘Catch up… or not’ defensive structure.