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Waratahs are a flawed football team, particularly without Kurtley Beale

21st May, 2016
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Kurtley Beale returns to the Waratahs in 2018. (AAP Image/SNPA, Dianne Manson)
Roar Guru
21st May, 2016
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The New South Wales Waratahs are a good football team. They are also a flawed football team. And in a tight race for the Australian conference, that is a big problem.

All season, Waratahs fans have been waiting for the team’s season to really kick in to high gear. After four wins on the trot it looked like it had finally happened. Friday night’s loss to the Crusaders delivered a brutal dose of reality to the team.

Friday night was really one of the few times this season that the Waratahs didn’t beat themselves; they were genuinely outplayed by the opposition. The gulf between the top of the New Zealand conference and the top of the Australian conference was clear for all to see as the Crusaders dominated the match from the opening kickoff.

However, this was largely not the case for the Waratahs earlier in the year. The Tahs were losing not because they were being outplayed, but because they were handing the opposition victory on a silver platter.

If we look back to the loss to the Highlanders, NSW trailed 30 after 54 minutes, yet if you look closely, the Highlanders were only leading because they were capitalising on the Waratahs errors. There were no periods of sustained attack in which they ground the Waratahs down and eventually overran them. Instead their points came from turnovers, intercepts and first phase, set-piece moves.

For 54 minutes the Highlanders weren’t outplaying the Waratahs, the Waratahs were just playing horrendously bad. Yet eventually the passes started to go to hand and the Tahs began to dominate. The forwards finally started winning the battle in the trenches. They scored four straight tries and came close to scoring a match-winning fifth.

The formula was largely the same in the home losses to the Brumbies and Rebels. Waratahs handling errors gifting the opposition the ball, simple one on one defensive errors opening up holes for the opposition, an inability to win the forwards battle.

Throughout all of this there was one bright spot, Kurtley Beale. When the Waratahs were playing poorly Beale was by far the best player in a sky blue jersey each week. He was almost always beating the first defender, bending the defensive line, making half breaks. Every time he touched the ball you watched a little closer because there was a chance that a piece of brilliance was about to take place.

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During the Waratahs run of four-straight victories a couple of things started to change. The backline moves that were not going to hand early in the season started to come off. Finally Kurtley wasn’t the only one providing a spark.

Israel Folau started to develop as an outside centre, constantly finding holes for himself or opening them up for his teammates. The accuracy of Bernard Foley’s passes improved. And Nick Phipps started sniping around the base of the ruck, exposing holes in the opposition’s ruck defence and creating a bit of extra time for his teammates by putting the defence in two minds.

On the defensive side of the ball, the players started to make their one on one tackles. More crucially however, was the fact that the simple alignment errors were mostly eliminated. The defence around the base of the ruck was solidified, other than a couple of instances against the Stormers.

However, while the Tahs showed clear signs of improvement during the past month, it also became ever clearer that they have one fatal flaw. And after Friday’s loss, there is no doubt that this flaw exists.

The Waratahs forward pack simply isn’t good enough.

The scrum has been totally dominated in almost every game they have played this year. The lineout has been atrocious. Both set pieces have failed to provide the backs with a solid platform to attack.

In general play, the Waratahs forwards can’t get over the advantage line. Players that were running over the opposition during the run to the 2014 title have been physically dominated up front. Will Skelton is a shell of his former self. Wycliff Palu waits for defenders to tackle him.

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The problems are two-fold for the Waratahs. Slow ball at the ruck means that the defensive line is set before NSW have a chance to attack, naturally making life very difficult for forward runners.

Flowing on from this, the Tahs forwards don’t run on to the ball with any intensity or vigour. They catch the ball standing still and are tackled by two or three defenders before they even get a chance to build up some speed.

And that leads on to the next issue, the Tahs simply don’t have the skills to interlink within the forwards. This was clear for all to see against the Crusaders. The Canterburian forwards are all ball players, they would pass it to each other, creating simple one on one battles, a far easier proposition for an attacker trying to get over the advantage line.

Alternatively, if the defence tried to gang tackle the ball carrier, a simple tip on and the receiver is straight through a hole. We saw this when Tatafu Polata-Nau jammed in on the ball carrier and a quick pass saw Joe Moody charge through a huge hole. The Crusaders scored in the next phase.

The inability to ball play within the forwards has significantly hurt the Waratahs. Their forward hit ups are predictable, resulting in gang tackles and slow breakdowns. Most times they have tried a tip on pass of some sort, it has been sloppy or resulted in a dropped ball.

Watching the match against the Bulls last weekend it was clear that the only way the Waratahs were going to pick up metres was by giving the ball to the backs. But you have to be dominating upfront to be able to spin it wide. During the early stages of the season, if we take out Beale, the Tahs were constantly under pressure when using the ball in the backline because the backs weren’t playing behind front-foot ball. This led to numerous errors and the team struggled considerably.

The one saving grace for the team was Beale. Almost every time he touched the ball this season he bent back the defensive line, or broke a tackle or two, or just slid straight through. He was providing the Tahs with some semblance of front-foot ball and one of few payers providing attacking spark.

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On the positive, this Waratahs forward pack is very young. Tom Robertson, Jack Dempsey and Jed Holloway are aged 21, 22 and 23 respectively. Hugh Roach is also 23 and despite being around for years, Michael Hooper is just 24 years of age, as is Will Skelton. The forward pack can only develop and improve in the coming years.

While it may be the forward pack that is currently holding this side back from becoming great, if they are able to stay together and develop as a group, it will be this same forward pack that leads this team to another title in the coming few years. It will just take time.

Despite all the negatives, the Waratahs still currently sit atop the Australian conference. A trip to the finals is a strong possibility and with this backline, they have the potential to cause an upset. However, without Beale and with an under-par forward pack, such a run is unlikely.

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