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Australian rugby fans seeking a scapegoat for the Brumbies and Waratahs’ semi-final losses will have done well to make good use of the time since Saturday to reflect on the real reasons why their seasons have ended a week earlier than hoped.
For a start, while Glenn Jackson and Craig Joubert have both enjoyed better days with the whistle, they simply don’t rank in the first dozen reasons for the respective losses.
Contemporary professional rugby is a mass of buzz words like ‘structures’, ‘systems’, ‘KPIs’, ‘skill sets’ and ‘playing what’s in front of you’.
Which is all fine and dandy, except there is another set of old-fashioned words which still merit attention for any teams aspiring to win a rugby match.
Pass, catch, kick, tackle, run and back-up are perhaps the core component skills of rugby. Do these things well, better than your opponent, and at pace, and you will invariably win many more games than you lose.
Which is exactly what the Hurricanes and Highlanders did on Saturday night.
Both teams were far from perfect – in finals football there is too much at stake and too much quality in the opposition to have everything go your own way. But both New Zealand sides showed superior respect and regard for the basics of the game, in both their preparation, tactics and execution, which left the Australian sides exposed and vulnerable.
In Wellington the Hurricanes, looking fresh from their week off, repeatedly probed for holes in the Brumbies’ defence, so much so that it was a small miracle that by half-time only two tries had resulted. Both were trademark efforts, working the ball into space for firstly the big bus Julian Savea to steamroll Nic White on his way in, and the second a trademark TJ Perenara score from backing up an outside break.
There’s your comparison between the two sides right there. Eleven tries this season for Perenara, many of them similar support-play efforts, compared to his counterpart White who – and I don’t have stats to prove it but I’d put my house on it – would be well ahead of Perenara on balls tidied up around his defensive 22 and goal-line.
In terms of individual players, hooker Dane Coles had by far his best game of the season, James Broadhurst and Victor Vito were up to their very high 2015 standards and Ardie Savea may just have had Steve Hansen squirming in his seat a little with his compelling, assertive performance in attack and defence.
On the other hand, Beauden Barrett looked out of sorts for most of the match. Hurricanes supporters will be hoping that it is nothing more than rustiness off a long injury break.
As for the Brumbies, it’s not as if they played poorly, indeed prop Scott Sio and skipper Stephen Moore were among the game’s best players, and one second half breakdown steal by David Pocock was an audacious magician’s act of sheer beauty.
But with an eye to the list of basics above, the Brumbies failed to match the Hurricanes in the attacking elements, and were markedly inferior in tackling. In the end, by finishing third or fourth as losing a semi-finalist, they copped their right whack.
Much of the pre-game talk in Sydney predicted the Highlanders’ demise due to their rapid-fire game being unsuitable for the heavier, damp conditions away from their Dunedin billiard table. There was also widespread agreement that the Waratahs would dominate them in the physical exchanges.
That neither of these things happened was a tactical triumph for coach Jamie Joseph, who devised a game plan which effectively locked their running game away in the garage for a week, eliminating the chances of his side getting knocked over in midfield, behind the advantage line.
Instead there was a lot of kicking, much of it shallow or to the sidelines, the type of play that on another day would have been considered wasteful, but against a stuttering Waratahs side was perfect.
While Israel Folau confidently dealt with the high ball, the lack of a quality kicking option in the Waratahs’ back three, the lack of space due to a tenacious Highlander’s defence, and five lineouts lost off the feed, served to choke the Waratahs down to the point where the territory was ridiculously skewed in the Highlander’s favour.
The inside back pairing of Lima Sopoaga and Aaron Smith followed the game plan to such an extent it actually impacted on their own individual performances, Smith making a season’s worth of mistakes via taking on far too much play himself.
But it mattered not a jot, indeed the ultimate irony came when a loose Smith pass was eventually collected by Richard Buckman, an expert at making something out of nothing, who duly slithered under some midfield tacklers and then ran away for a try.
Another loose pass of note was the first of the match, off the left hand of Waratahs halfback Nick Phipps who, it must be said, endured another less than satisfactory night. In retrospect, this set the tone for the Waratah’s performance, failing most notably in the basics of pass, catch and kick.
Joubert copped plenty from a vocal crowd, in particular for his penalty try and yellow card decision against Waratahs flanker Jacques Potgeiter. I could happily have lived with a ‘non-decision’, there was no intent on Potgeiter’s part and it was Patrick Osborne himself who seemed to prevent himself from grounding the ball, regardless of the hit.
But despite not knowing that a falling Osborne would have his head exactly where his arm would be, Potgeiter can’t really feel hard done by – any player who throws a loose arm into any tackle like he did rolls the dice and lives with the consequences.
If there was a valid complaint about Joubert, it was that he missed several forward passes, mostly off inside balls (from both sides), and didn’t impose a firm offside line at the breakdown (again for both sides). This remains a frustrating problem for all rugby, and it seems incomprehensible that at this level a referee and two assistants can’t work together to keep two sides properly apart.
Many comments during and after the game referred to the Waratahs lacking a ‘Plan B’, however it wasn’t obvious to me what ‘Plan A’ actually was. Certainly coach Michael Cheika will know in his heart that despite his side’s reputation for physicality, they were met head on and beaten in the forwards this season by the Force, Stormers and now, Highlanders.
One reason for this is that the Waratahs were trying to impose themselves through bullocking runs or hits in defence as individuals, rather than working together as a cohesive pack of forwards. Once again a basic element of the game, one where this ‘no-name’ Highlanders pack showed their opponent the value of teamwork.
So, just as for the Brumbies, third or fourth as losing semi-finalist, seems like the Waratahs’ right whack.
Another basic is the expectation home viewers of professional sport have that they enjoy live commentary which is informed, impartial and professional. This seems to be achieved easily enough by pretty much all other notable sports, however rugby viewers in Australia continue to be poorly served.
When Beauden Barrett missed an early penalty in Wellington, Fox Sports comments man Greg Martin gleefully exclaimed that it was a really good sign for us. While Martin can often be fulsome in his praise for silky skilled New Zealand play, this was base level cheerleading of the very worst kind.
Meanwhile, expectations are never high where Phil Kearns is involved, and he was predictably true to type, zeroing in on Craig Joubert as the root cause of the Waratahs’ troubles. Miserable, sniveling, biased nonsense.
It makes no sense at all for Fox Sports to employ an expert panel including the likes of John Eales and Tim Horan, when their coverage is compromised by Kearns.
Bumping both of these clowns off match day and into a panel show, where they belong, would be a good start to fixing things.