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For the past two weeks I’ve been wondering why Ewen McKenzie has announced his starting Wallaby XV and reserves a couple of days before he needed to do so.
What has added to the mystery is that a key selection, Kurtley Beale at number 10, is the sort of information that in the natural order of things a national coach would delay announcing for as long as he could.
Beale plays a different game than Bernard Foley at 10.
Foley is an orthodox number 10. He is better than most in standing relatively flat. This allows him to get across the advantage line quickly, or put runners across the advantage line quickly. A Zavos Principle of winning rugby is that the team that wins the battle of the advantage line wins the game. Getting to the advantage line quickly is one of the best ways to win the battle there.
Beale, on the other hand, stands deeper and likes to have runners coming from even deeper to send away with inside pop-up passes or longer cut-out passes.
The point here is that both these players require different defensive strategies from opponents hoping to keep them in check.
One of the points that came out of the Sydney Bledisloe Test is that the All Blacks handled Beale more easily than they handled Foley when he came on towards the end of the game. And this is natural; by naming Beale early, McKenzie gave the All Blacks time to work out ways of defending against him.
So why is McKenzie telegraphing his potential knock-out punch?
I think he is trying to get the All Blacks to concentrate on the Wallabies rather than concentrate on their on game. Judging from the play at Sydney and the response from the All Blacks, this mind-game tactic might have worked.
The All Blacks went into the Sydney Test with a good game plan to shut down Beale. But they didn’t seem to have a game plan to do their own thing, which is to score tries. It is extremely rare for the All Blacks not to score a try in a Test (a Roarer with a penchant for statistics might be able to help us out here).
Kieran Read conceded earlier this week that the All Blacks had the wrong tactics at Sydney. They were not direct enough. They lacked physicality. They gave away too much possession with kicking.
This will change at Eden Park. Expect the All Blacks to hit the ball up more, and expect them to have more answers than they did at Sydney on the Wallabies’ rush defence.
If they don’t or can’t make these changes, there is a very real danger of them suffering their first loss to the Wallabies at Eden Park since 1984, when Alan Jones’ splendid side won back the Bledisloe Cup.
One of the more interesting statistics to come out of the Sydney Test is that the Wallabies gained 410 metres in runs and the All Blacks only 184 metres.
If the Wallabies can make these sorts of running gains in difficult conditions, then what will they do if Eden Park, generally a fast field like Suncorp Stadium, is dry and hard?
To be even able to pose the question is an indication of how the Wallaby coach’s mind games are being played.
Another reason for the earlier announcement of the Wallaby XV could be that McKenzie wants the All Blacks and their coaching staff to believe they have worked out their game.
The All Blacks could feel impelled to change their basic game plan, always a difficult thing to do in the middle of a campaign.
Closer to home, McKenzie is sending a message to his players that they have the cattle, the game plan and the ticker to pull off a victory at Eden Park.
This is all about confidence. One of the advantages the All Blacks have had for some years now is that they know their personnel and game plan are winners. And how do they know this? Look at the score board. Against the Wallabies, the All Blacks have won something like 25 out of the last 30 or so Tests.
During the Rod Macqueen era, the All Blacks did not have this belief. They lost Tests they might have won by conceding last-minute tries and penalties. In the last few years the All Blacks have won virtually all these tight games.
I would say, but the All Blacks would disagree, that the 12-12 draw they gutsed out at Sydney was a sort of win, in that they denied the Wallabies a win when they were poised in the last scrum to force a winning try, penalty or even a drop goal.
Interestingly, the All Blacks were in a similar position about five minutes earlier when they had a couple of scrums on the Wallabies’ tryline. The Wallabies were saved by a couple of decisions by the South African referee Jaco Peyper.
Here we get to another unknown about the Eden Park. How will the French referee Romain Poite referee the scrums? In the third Test last year against the British and Irish Lions, Poite refereed the scrums in such a way that the Wallabies were ground into the dirt.
The scrums remain a weak part of the Wallabies game. If they can get parity here, they can go a long way to winning at Eden Park.
It won’t be easy, of course. The last time the All Blacks were defeated in New Zealand was in 2009, when the Springboks beat them at Hamilton.
The way I see the two teams right now is that the All Blacks have probably reached the peak (but an Everest of a peak!) this squad is capable at playing at. Unless the All Blacks tinker with their game plan, get some new speed in the forwards and backs and get some zip back into their game, they will go into a small decline.
They are still a great side. But opponents are getting closer to defeating them. In their last five Tests, Ireland, England and now the Wallabies came close to defeating them.
The Wallabies have got some growth to go. But how much?
Ewen McKenzie seems to be saying to his players (and to the All Blacks), you are the chosen ones to take the Bledisloe Cup off the All Blacks. The game plan is there. Just go out and do it!
The mind games are easy enough to play, if you are so inclined. It’s the real games, though, that are hard to play and win.