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Finally, Cheika gets to lay ‘his’ cards on the table

13th July, 2015
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Matt Giteau, it's time to say goodbye. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft)
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13th July, 2015
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Mid-morning Thursday, Australian Eastern Standard Time. That will be when we find out the Wallabies’ 23-man squad to take on South Africa at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane on Saturday night, the first match of The Rugby Championship.

It will also mark the first steps on the road to the Rugby World Cup in England later this year.

It will be a significant moment not just for where the Wallabies are heading in 2015. Thursday’s team announcement will mark the first time Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has been able to name a team from a squad he selected.

When Cheika took on the Wallabies gig late last year, he had to run with Ewen McKenzie’s European Tour squad and try and fashion a ‘Cheika team’ from the deck of cards he’d been handed.

On Thursday, he finally gets the chance to deal the cards in the order he wants them, from a deck he assembled himself, and on home turf. Nine months into the Wallabies job, Cheika finally gets to lay his own cards out on the table.

After so much speculation, and will he or won’t he pick this guy or that guy murmurs, we’ll get an idea of the way Cheika wants to shape the Wallabies.

Of course, in trimming the initial 40-man squad back to 31 on Friday afternoon we have been able to narrow things down somewhat, even if we’re no closer to curtailing the ‘Pocock or Hooper?’ debate that’s ruminated since February.

I’m far from convinced that Michael Hooper being named as one of Stephen Moore’s deputies locks him into the starting side. If the previous coach had no issue with a vice-captain playing on the wing, then it’s really not that big a leap to having a vice-captain off the bench.

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Though we may never know if it was seriously on the cards, the omission of Queensland centre Samu Kerevi means we can almost certainly rule out the big-carrying power-runner at 12. With Matt Giteau and Matt Toomua left in the squad, and Kurtley Beale, too, it appears safe to assume Cheika is going to continue with the expansive, wide-running game that his teams have tended to play.

Physical up front and at the breakdown, quick recycle, and spin it wide. If the ‘Australian way’ of playing the game is real and not as mythical as it sometimes feels, then this methodology – this ‘identity’, as Cheika likes to call it – is probably catering to that desire.

It’s fair to say that a Cheika team won’t play 10-man rugby. Not yet, anyway.

That said, there is still the option of playing Tevita Kuridrani and Adam Ashley-Cooper as a centre-pairing, but that really isn’t the Cheika way, and nor does it really fit with how attack coach Stephen Larkham prefers to play the game.

Before he was forced into retirement, it wasn’t often Pat McCabe started games for the Brumbies in the No.12 jersey. If he played in the centres, he was almost always an outside ball-playing 12.

And certainly, all the talk coming from the Sunshine Coast last week was of Matt Giteau running at No.12 outside a Will Genia-Quade Cooper halves pairing. I have to admit, that wouldn’t be the worst – but it’s been a while since we have seen those men all line up together.

You have to go all the way back to the end of 2010 to find the last time they started as the Wallabies’ 9-10-12. Australia beat New Zealand in Hong Kong, then went to Cardiff and thumped Wales, before Toby Flood’s seven penalties saw England home at Twickenham.

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Giteau was benched the following week as Australia beat France 59-16 in Paris.

Interestingly, those sides all featured Drew Mitchell on the left wing, Ashley-Cooper at outside centre, and Beale at fullback. Sub Israel Folau onto the right wing for the unselected James O’Connor, and Cheika could really get the band back, if he so desired.

Regardless, if Cheika’s inside centre selection flows on to whom he picks in the halves – and I do think Giteau or Matt Toomua would work better with Cooper than with Bernard Foley – then there is no doubt his answer to the openside flanker question has a major flow-on for the backrow, and even the entire back five of the pack.

Simply, he can go hard at the breakdown or he can go mobile.

So if Hooper is the preference at No. 7, for the sake of starting somewhere, then that would nearly ensure that Scott Fardy and Ben McCalman – two workrate backrowers to complement Hooper’s running game – are picked at blindside and No.8.

But if Pocock is the answer, then a decent case for Scott Higginbotham at No.8 exists, to utilise his running and ball-carrying game teamed with Pocock over the ball. And you could nearly toss a coin between Fardy and McCalman at blindside. Though if Will Skelton starts at lock, then I think you’d have to go with Fardy for extra cover and a slight lineout edge over McCalman.

And if Skelton does start, then it almost certainly means Rory Arnold won’t. It’s hard to see two rookie locks starting a Test against the Springboks. Rob Simmons would almost certainly get the nod. James Horwill and Dean Mumm are in the frame, too, but I’m just not sure where at the moment. That said, I have this sneaking suspicion Cheika wants to start Arnold and Skelton at some point before the Rugby World Cup.

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Up front, I’m really happy to see Greg Holmes still in the mix. And so is he, obviously; I don’t think I’ve seen a picture of him without a massive grin on his face in the last week. Whether he starts or not, I’ve just got a lot more confidence about the scrum. Sio and Holmes, Slipper and Kepu, Sio and Kepu, or Slipper and Holmes; it feels solid whichever way Cheika goes.

Certainly, all the hallmarks of Cheika the selector are there to see in the 31 left. On Thursday, we’ll get to finally see the evolution in the thinking of Cheika the Wallabies coach.

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