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After I arrived back at my South Yarra accomodation following Australia’s 6-0 second Test defeat of France at Etihad Stadium, I logged on to The Roar‘s excellent running commentary to read this from Rollaway 7: “Sat in the box next to the news room, I think Spiro was falling asleep.”
What I was actually doing was swinging around in frustration and anger in my chair.
It just happened that I could get a look into the box next door where a group of well-dressed men and women were watching the Test. The swinging around was an angry reaction to the way the Wallabies kicked, and kicked, and kicked.
I couldn’t see the point of this kicking away good possession, especially after a ball-in-hand game in Brisbane had resulted in a 50-23 first Test victory to the Wallabies in which they scored seven tries.
This Melbourne Test was played inside an enclosed stadium, so there were no wind or rain problems, although Nic White was continually getting the ball wiped (dry?). Yet the Wallabies played as if the conditions were so atrocious that it was better for the other side to have the responsibility of trying to do something with the ball.
As a consequence of this determination to play football rather than rugby, the Wallabies managed to kick two penalties to eke out a 6-0 victory, if the result could be embellished with this triumphal noun. According to one Roarer, this is the lowest score involving the Wallabies since the All Blacks defeated them 3-0 in 1962.
After the Test, Ewen McKenzie praised “the grit” of his players to tough out a narrow victory, especially as France looked like pulling off an incredible upset when they finally launched a series of inspired, desperate attacks in the final minutes of the Test. Only some brave and accurate tackling by the Wallabies secured the final result.
McKenzie explained that the tactics the Wallabies used were to kick out of their own half on all occasions. In other words, the dreaded ‘Jakeball’ method has now insinuated its way into the DNA of McKenzie’s Wallabies. Say it isn’t so, Ewen!
His explanation casts doubts about his expressed conviction that the Wallabies want to win with entertaining rugby. The half-time scoreline was 0-0. It was clear then that the Jakeball game the Wallabies were playing wasn’t working. But after half time, the Wallabies came out and continued the kicking.
The Wallabies don’t go into the bowels of the stands at half time. They stay out on the field where the crowd can watch the coaching staff in action, or inaction, trying to get a message across to the players. For most of the time, McKenzie stood by himself or with the attack coach Jim McKay. They were deep in conversation. Occasionally there was pointing of arms to distant parts of the field.
McKenzie had a few words to the squad before they went back on to the field. The team got into a huddle by themselves. And for several minutes they stayed there until the French came back out.
What were the Wallabies saying to each other? What was Michael Hooper, the new captain, saying?
It certainly did not go along the lines of “Plan A our Jakeball game is not working, let’s go to Plan B which is how we played at Brisbane.”
Who is to blame for this failure to seize the moment – McKenzie or Hooper?
Contrast this with the All Blacks earlier that night in Dunedin, down 10- 6 against a rampant England side and playing poorly. They stormed into the second half and overwhelmed England to establish a big lead with 10 minutes to go before being pegged back by two soft tries to England at the end.
Hooper also gave away a chance early on in the Test to kick for goal. The tactic bombed when the French foiled the ensuing Wallaby lineout drive.
France missed their only two penalty shots at goal, while the Wallabies converted two of their five.
This last statistic and the lineout statistics, where France won 22 lineouts with 2 steals and 2 penalties to the 8 wins and 1 steal by the Wallabies, point to the inevitable conclusion that this Wallabies side should never try to play Jakeball.
Jakeball is actually a far more sophisticated method than most rugby commentators give it credit for.
First, you never play any rugby inside your own half.
Two, unless kicking very deep for territory, you put intense pressure on the opposition catchers of your high ball (think Bryan Habana).
Three, you have a superior lineout that ensures you win your own ball and contest ferociously and often successfully for the opposition ball (think Victor Matfield).
Four, you put enormous pressure on the opposition ball runners when they are trying to get passing movements going (think Bismarck du Plessis).
Five, your scrum forces kicking penalties.
Six, inside the opposition half you use the big runners to smash the ball into the defence until holes are created (think Bakkies Botha).
Seven, you kick all the penalties your lineout, scrum, high ball chasing, tackling and running can force (think Morne Steyn).
The Wallabies exercised none of these principles of the Jakeball game in Melbourne, and as a consequence came very close to losing a Test they should have won in a canter.
The Jakeball game can only be a winner if you kick the majority of your penalties and the opposition miss some of theirs. The Wallabies missed three penalties. France missed two penalties. Neither of the misses was by much.
The only time the Wallabies looked like the team that played so superbly at Brisbane was when Kurtley Beale came on and started running back French kicks. He made huge ground gains and went close to putting runners into the clear with the tryline in their sights.
What is the point of having someone like Israel Folau and not using his running skills? On the few occasions Folau ran he threatened to open up the French defensive wall, but this running happened rarely.
Having Folau kick the ball back to the opposition or to pass the ball to another player to do the kicking is like substituting a Rolls Royce with a Jeep on the race track. It’s the wrong vehicle for the job.
After another pointless kick, I jotted this down in my notebook: “The Nic White experiment has run out. It’s time to bring back Will Genia.”
Then on Sunday we got the news that Will Genia is going to have some surgery to get him right for The Rugby Championship. I still think that White should be axed and Nick Phipps brought in.
The Wallabies were curiously flat right from the beginning of the Test. It’s perhaps time to refresh the backline by bringing in Beale to inside centre and Matt Toomua into fly half. There is a problem here, though, if White doesn’t start. Who kicks the goals? Beale is not regarded as a first-choice kicker.
I can’t see Toomua being dropped, but White or Bernard Foley are the starting goal-kicker options in this Wallabies squad. Should the successful NSW Waratahs quartet of Phipps, Foley, Beale and Adam Ashley-Cooper be reinstated, with Tevita Kuridrani being played out on the wing?
In the match program, Norman Tasker, a doyen rugby writer, wrote a column with this headline: “The Wallaby forwards hunted like wild dogs in Brisbane. The All Blacks would have taken note.”
That was certainly true of the Brisbane Test. After the Melbourne Test, though, it is clear that the All Blacks needn’t worry just yet. Not even the French will be shaking in their boots over the Wallabies forwards, or backs, right now.
When I studied philosophy at university, we were taught this principle: not to go forward is to go back.
Melbourne was a retreat on the splendid journey forward foreshadowed at Brisbane. The Wallabies have regressed to the extent that this was one of the worst efforts, winning or losing, they have inflicted on their supporters in recent years.
The great thing about all of this is that the Wallabies have a chance to put the Melbourne retreat behind them in an afternoon Test at Sydney’s Allianz Stadium this Saturday. Let them come out from the start and play the way they did at Brisbane.