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SPIRO: Can Quade Cooper and SBW become sevens champions?

24th January, 2016
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Sonny Bill Williams could be unstoppable at the Rio Olympics. (AP Photo/SNPA, John Cowpland)
Expert
24th January, 2016
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On Friday, the ARU announced the hardly surprising news that Quade Cooper has been signed on to the 2016 Australian rugby sevens program, with an intention for him to be the playmaker for a side that is short on x-factor magic.

I am going to surprise many constant readers by endorsing this signing.

That is right. The ARU has done a good thing in signing Cooper up for three tournaments, starting in Sydney in a couple of weeks, before the Rio Olympics.

If Cooper performs well, he will be a starter in Rio. If he doesn’t he goes back to the grind of French rugby with Toulon and the regular criticism of Toulon’s president, loud-mouth Mourad Boudjellal.

I see the Cooper switch as a win-win for all the parties concerned.

The Australian sevens coaching staff get to trial a potential playmaker of genius. Cooper gets his chance to show he still has the genius with his passing, especially, and his stepping to ignite the ashes of the underperforming Australian sevens side. And Toulon have Cooper removed from their books for a month or so.

I know, I know, Cooper is not the most ardent of tacklers. As well, the blinding speed he had until injuries in 2011 slowed him down is no longer there.

And yes, as he has got older and slower (relatively) and more vulnerable to pressure from his opponents, the headless chook aspect of his play has become more of a constant feature rather than the occasional thunderbolt strike of madness.

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But his instincts on the rugby field are still shaped by the touch-rugby game he excelled at as a youngster. He might not be as quick of feet as he has been but he is still quick between the ears, and this mental genius in seeing opportunities for running the ball could be inspirational for the current lacklustre Australian sevens side.

As for the tackling, or lack of it, this is something that needs obvious work from him. I expect Cooper to at least get some arms and shoulders into opposition runners. As the sweeper on defence, too, he might be able to avoid most of the front-on tackles that often find him wanting in technique.

The point is that this tackling deficiency is all about technique. It is not about a lack of ticker. Cooper has all the courage in the world, as he has proved in his boxing career.

Any man who willingly goes into the boxing ring as a participant should never be criticised for lacking ticker, in any situation.

I would see Cooper playing the role of playmaker on attack and sweeper on defence for the Australian sevens side. This should reduce the front-on tackling that he clearly does not relish. This is the role the wizard Pio Tuwai plays for Fiji, one of the favoured sides to win Olympic gold at Rio.

According to Andy Friend, the new coach (finally!) for the Australian sevens side, Cooper “brings with him an x-factor that I feel could add an extra dimension to our squad”. I agree.

With Tom Kingston in the current squad and Nick Cummins and Henry Speight to join him in due course, Cooper will have some runners with speed – admittedly a bit short of the blazing pace of the USA Eagles’ Carlin Isles – to put into the clear with his heady and adventurous passing game.

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This injection of pace into the Australian sevens is as necessary as the Cooper playmaking game for the success of the side.

Australia have lacked the sort of speedsters that, say, the USA Eagles have. The pace of the USA Eagles allowed the sevens side to defeat the All Blacks three times in recent tournaments, an achievement that has been beyond Australia.

Friend should bring his own extra dimension to the Australian sevens side, as well. He has been a professional coach since rugby went professional in 1996 and he was assistant coach of the Australian sevens in 2005. He has subsequently been a head coach at Harlequins, Brumbies, Canon Eagles and Suntory Sungoliath.

Friend takes over for the Sydney Sevens on February 6-7, a week after the Wellington Sevens.

Sonny Bill Williams looks likely to be tested with the All Blacks sevens at the weekend in Wellington. In the squad are the brilliant youngster from Auckland, Arika Ioane (destined to be an All Black great loose forward), and Wellington’s Ardie Savea (another prodigiously talented young New Zealand loose forward).

All the talk, though, is about Sonny Bill Williams and how he will adjust to sevens rugby. Quade Cooper insists that SBW will be unstoppable: “Sonny is hard enough to stop in 15-a-side so how the hell are teams going to handle him in sevens?”

Good question.

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SBW will obviously bring his smash-unload league game to sevens rugby, for this is the basis of his game. You can’t afford to gang tackle players in sevens rugby, especially someone as big and strong as SBW who can offload seemingly from any tackle situation.

There is talk that SBW has taken off four kilos to get aerobically fit for the extra running on attack and defence required in sevens rugby.

There is only one caveat regarding SBW and sevens rugby. He lacks the sort of zip in his running that very good centres have, if only over the first 10 metres. SBW takes time to get into his running groove and even when he is in it, he isn’t particularly quick.

Perhaps a lighter SBW will be a quicker SBW.

Whether slightly quicker or not, SBW is certain to attack defenders trying and tackle him. He is so strong he will resist the tackle and then unload to a runner.

This is the sort of play that turned the 2015 Rugby World Cup final just after half-time when Ma’a Nonu was sent on his way from a SBW unload to score a memorable try against the Wallabies.

On the defensive side of the ball, SBW will be in his element. Sevens rugby defence involves a lot of one-on-one, as league does. SBW in the middle of the field should force teams to go wide and be exposed to the touchline or kick away the ball to try and make some progress.

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Sir Gordon Tietjens, the rugby sevens guru and All Blacks sevens coach, has described how he wants his side to play this year: “The style I am looking to play is a direct style and to be superb around the contact areas and that will come together even more so when you have new players like Ioane and Savea and SBW and Messam.

“If we can accelerate those areas then the number of defenders these guys will attack will have chances.”

If teams stop Sonny Bill Williams in the contact area from unloading, they will stop the All Black sevens.

But if SBW is unstoppable, as his history as a league and rugby player suggests, then the All Black sevens will be hard to defeat.

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