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After coming up short yet again against a firing All Blacks side, the Wallabies are happy to be facing the Springboks on Saturday in Perth.
Not that Test rugby against South Africa is ever a snack, but there isn’t the same type of pre-match pressure involved – no heightened emphasis on recapturing a Bledisloe Cup which has been AWOL from the ARU trophy cabinet for 12 years.
Ewen McKenzie and his team will have enjoyed the opportunity to focus on a new opponent and the different challenges associated with that.
There will be positivity and optimism within the team around the backline changes, restoring the side to how it looked during the successful French series.
It is right not to dwell on negatives for too long and it is very important the Wallabies approach this match with genuine confidence and belief. But there have also been comments from the camp this week which suggest that the balance between the public front and the reality isn’t quite what it should be.
McKenzie was quoted on Monday as saying that the 51-20 loss to the All Blacks in Auckland was an “aberration”, going on further to put the loss down to the All Blacks capitalising on some untidy play. He also suggested that if the Wallabies had controlled the ball, not allowing the turnovers, that would have forced the All Blacks into more set pieces, and to win the ball.
Two points spring readily to mind. New Zealand has held the cup now for 12 seasons. The holder enjoys the benefit of incumbency because the challenger must win twice in a season, regardless of whether there are two matches or three in the series. Nevertheless, Australia has not come close to winning it back in this period.
In each of the recent seasons, there have been conclusive, dominant wins to the All Blacks. Last year 49-29, 22-0 in 2012, 30-14 in 2011, 49-28 in 2010, 33-6 in 2009, and 39-10 in 2008.
This year’s 51-20 result wasn’t an aberration or blip, but rather confirmation of a pattern.
The second comment about preventing turnovers is also interesting. No side can play out a Test match without making mistakes and creating turnovers for the opposition. So the notion that success would ensue if only the Wallabies could play a perfect game and not drop the ball or get turned over at a breakdown is fundamentally flawed.
Sure, mistakes must be minimised, but winning comes from how you prepare for and react to those mistakes when they inevitably happen, and from what strike power you have to score points when you do keep the ball.
One also wonders what McKenzie was thinking when he suggested the key to success against the All Blacks is eliminating broken play from turnovers and making it a set piece contest. Is there anyone except for Ewen and the most rusted-on Wallabies supporters who really thinks Australia has an advantage at the scrum or lineout against New Zealand, South Africa or Argentina?
To be fair to McKenzie, he isn’t about to lie down and admit that it’s all too hard. Modern coaching comprises a delicate balancing act where the coach must be honest and real enough to get to the truth of the matter, while being neither too despondent after a loss nor too cocky after a win. It is no easy task to keep the confidence of the playing group up while at the same time not having them believe they’re better than they actually are.
But, to this outsider at least, McKenzie’s public comments don’t reflect reality, and it is to be hoped that he has a much more hard-nosed understanding of where his side really sits.
Finally, a comment on the non-selection of Will Skelton for this weekend’s Test match.
Skelton is a young player who plays a position where many of the greats took a long time to develop the maturity and hardness which eventually marked their greatness. He has the size, skill and athleticism required for international success, and seems to have a willing attitude to match. His time will surely come.
What is most astonishing about his situation however is not the matter of his selection or non-selection for this match, but how little rugby he has actually played this year.
Skelton went around last weekend for the Sydney Stars in the NRC, which was his first full game of rugby since May 18th!
The great Bart Cummings built his Melbourne Cup success on the theory that for a horse to win it needed a minimum of 20,000 metres of racing under its belt in the lead-up. Based on that premise, Skelton is hardly conditioned enough to run the Golden Slipper.
This problem isn’t confined to Australia only. Fixture scheduling and the modern trend of separating players into starters or impact players affects everyone.
But if Ewen McKenzie is looking for the real reasons why his side came up short yet again in Auckland, instead of putting it down to an aberration, he might well consider how he can get some good old-fashioned match hardness into his under-performing forward pack.