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During the weekend I spent a pleasant 10 minutes or so on New Zealand sports radio talking about the return to Australian rugby of naughty boy, and the ring leader of the Three Amigos, James O’Connor.
The interviewer wanted to get my opinion on two matters.
First, is O’Connor a reformed character, as he says he is? Second, how much will he add to the competitiveness of the Wallabies, with the implication that O’Connor will make a huge difference.
My short answer to these questions was that O’Connor is probably a reformed character and that I can’t see what he can really add to the Wallabies, aside from being an extra goal-kicker.
I pointed out that one of the Amigos, Quade Cooper, has behaved with the propriety of a saint since coming back into the Wallaby squad, on and off the field. The verdict is very much out for another Amigo, Kurtley Beale, who is currently on about his third last-chance for unacceptable behaviour off the field.
Everything suggests that O’Connor will follow the Cooper model of behaviour, rather than the Beale model. The days of him being the Justin Bieber of rugby are hopefully over.
As an aside, I spent a wet evening at Eden Park during the Australia vs Ireland match in the 2011 Rugby World Cup with a woman, wearing clothes covered with a shamrock pattern, yelling out to O’Connor, almost into my ear, as he came anywhere near us on the field: “Justin, Justin, look over here! Look at me! Justin Bieber look over here!”
So the issue with O’Connor is how and where he will perform for the Reds and, presumably, for the Wallabies.
For the Wallabies, for instance, there is no question of him playing at number 10. His poor play in the series in 2013 against the British and Irish Lions killed off any aspirations he or his coaches might have had that he was going to be the Australian equivalent of Dan Carter.
Fullback is out, too, with Israel Folau set for this position.
Inside centre, perhaps? I don’t think so. He is too small for this position which increasingly in the modern game is becoming a big man’s position. Think Ma’a Nonu, Sonny Bill Williams and, if England can get him up to speed, Sam Burgess.
Michael Cheika should be thinking about Kyle Godwin for this position. I believe, though, that he still has Beale in mind to play the role for the Wallabies he did for the Waratahs in 2014. However, I think that Beale, like O’Connor, will be monstered by the big inside centres from the main rugby countries and his tackling will be found wanting.
Godwin, provided he is fit, should be the inside centre man, rather than Beale, O’Connor or even Matt Toomua.
Come to think of it, if you play O’Connor on the wing, he provides the goal-kicking to play Toomua at number 10 and Godwin at inside centre, with Tevita Kuridrani as the blockbuster outside centre. Hey presto, the Wallabies have a big (except for O’Connor), strong and explosive backline from halfback through to fullback.
In world rugby ‘the dark side’ is proving a spotlight for Sam Burgess
At the end of the sensational Rabbitohs vs Roosters NRL grand final, Sonny Bill Williams shook hands with Sam Burgess and said to him, “See you on the dark side.”
The reference, of course, was to Burgess going across to play rugby for Bath (and presumably England) in 2015.
Bath has taken Burgess gently on his voyage into the darkness but there are signs that the big chap is cottoning on to the complexities of the rugby game.
Over the weekend, Burgess played well for Bath in their 39-26 wipeout of Wasps. He was prominent in defence and attack and scored a try.
I’ve seen some clips of his play. He is still inclined to tackle around the head in the league manner, ‘le cravat’ as the French call this head-high form of tackling.
He has power, though, to steam-roll through the mid-field defensive line as he did in league. Like Sonny Bill Williams he doesn’t have real gas off the mark, the fizz, but he does, again like Williams, have a head of speed and and great power to break tackles and make the telling off-load.
Whether the England coaches will start Burgess in the Six Nations tournament will be a talking point. But given the mediocrity of their current inside centre claimants, Burgess would be very much worth a crack.
But don’t tell some leaguies that the ‘dark side’ is thriving outside Australia
Steve Mascord is a columnist, like me, on the Sydney Morning Herald (and occasionally here on The Roar, too). He has written a couple of articles recently about how league can save rugby in Australia that are … well I’ll leave it to Roar readers to make their comments.
The Mascord plan is that the NRL should look to spend some of their TV rights booty to buy into the Australian Rugby Union.
In exchange for helping to get the ARU out of its financial mess (which it is undoubtedly in), Mascord wants:
Somehow, I think this proposal is going to sink without a trace – rather like the proposal that Australian football leaders took to London in the 1880s to the IRB that the rugby football game should be immediately changed to the more ‘scientific’ Australian Rules game.
Some consideration of history, too, might be in order. Leaguies have been predicting the demise of rugby in Australia for over 100 years. During the 1908 tour of the United Kingdom by the original Kangaroos, James Giltinan, the promoter of the tour and one of the founding fathers of the league code in Sydney, told British journalists, “In three years’ time the only rugby game in Australian and Maoriland will be the Northern Union (rugby league) variety.”
Why the All Blacks will be tough to beat in 2015
Well, 104 years after rugby in these parts was supposed to have given up the ghost, the All Blacks are one of the most famous and successful sporting teams on the globe, a world-wide phenomenon that drew a sell-out crowd at the Soldiers Field in Chicago playing against the USA.
The Wallabies have won two Rugby World Cup tournaments, an Olympic gold medal for rugby (in 1908) and the ARU has hosted a successful Rugby World Cup tournament.
As Mark Twain might have said, predictions of the death of rugby in Australasia are greatly exaggerated.
The New Zealand Rugby Union has shown, with the recent appointment of Wayne Smith to the coaching panel of the All Blacks, why New Zealand rugby has been so successful since Giltinan’s predictions of its demise.
Smith is widely regarded as one of the great coaches in world rugby. He has won Super Rugby titles with the Crusaders and the Chiefs. He was one of the coaches with the All Blacks in their 2011 Rugby World Cup triumph.
He has been called back into the coaching panel for the All Blacks for their Rugby World Cup 2015 campaign to handle defence and counter attack.
Owen Slot, an experienced rugby writer for The Times, has made the point that the All Blacks have lost one Test in the last two years, yet the coaching panel has been upgraded to get more improvement out of the team, and form new ideas about improving the team’s already outstanding counter-attacking play.
Slot notes that England have lost their last five Tests against the All Blacks and that at the same time as Smith was brought into the All Blacks set-up, the Rugby Football Union has given new contracts to all the members of the England coaching staff.
Here in Australia, there has been no effort to bring into the Wallabies coaching set-up someone with the experience and success of Smith.
Which team, England, Australia or New Zealand, is likely to be better prepared to win the 2015 Rugby World Cup?