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The Wallabies learnt no lessons during their English whitewash

28th June, 2016
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28th June, 2016
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At least we didn’t lose to Iceland. Apart from that extremely greyed silver lining, there aren’t many positives to go on this week.

The Wallabies’ 44-40 loss to England on the weekend steered me strongly towards anger a number of times.

The five tries to four loss is depressing because you could see it coming at many points throughout the 80 minutes.

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It didn’t matter how well the Wallabies played, how many line breaks they made, how many offloads they flicked, or how many tries they scored. They were always going to give away more penalties than they could chase down.

That’s been the theme of the series so far: England do the basics well, wait for the Wallabies to invite a score, and take that chance (usually a penalty, but sometimes a horrific backpass into the shins of the fullback).

Three Tests in and the pattern is so ingrained it almost felt like clockwork on Saturday. In the final five minutes, when England were up by six, they had the ball in the Wallabies’ half and were running one out. You just knew the result wouldn’t be a huge tackle from a Wallaby or a swift ruck movement; it was going to be a penalty.

And sure enough, it wasn’t Wycliff Palu smashing someone, or Scott Fardy ducking into the ruck ahead of the clean out, it was a bunch of gold shirts kicking and screaming across a ruck and diving on top of the partially cleared ball. Penalty, white. Game over.

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You weren’t shocked. I wasn’t shocked. I don’t think England were either. The only people who didn’t know what was coming were the 15 men in gold jerseys on the Sydney Football Stadium turf.

They haven’t learnt anything.

The Wallabies lost the first Test – the sole match in this series where they had a claim to playing a game worthy of a win – because they kept giving England easy penalties and collapsing under pressure instead of standing tall.

In the first Test, Owen Farrell kicked six penalty goals to take England past a strong Wallabies outfit. By the third Test, things were the same but different: the Wallabies hadn’t learnt and allowed Farrell to kick another six goals, but this time it was to keep a composed England one step ahead of a rattled and striving Wallabies.

By comparison, Wales kicked six penalties against New Zealand in the entire series. The Wallabies allowed six goals in a game two out of three times. Allowing the opposition 18 points off the boot is close to criminal once, to do it twice shows a lack of self-reflection.

England gave up six penalty goals all series to Australia. Showing game awareness, accuracy around the pitch and self-belief to make the next tackle, rather than taking short-cuts.

England kicked 15 penalties across the three matches, Australia six. That’s nine points per game on average the Wallabies gave up because of poorer discipline.

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The difference between the effort, skill and mental toughness between this series and what was on display when they held out England and Wales in the World Cup is a chasm.

In the first 20 minutes of the series the Wallabies played the kind of possession-oriented, fast-moving rugby they wanted to play for the whole series. By the third Test they were blunted.

The possession was more even (66-34 down to 53-47), rucks won became more balanced (101-52 narrowed to 101-90) and the advantage line was harder to reach.

England absorbed the Wallabies’ best, kept their composure and kept refining their game. They found ways to attack more effectively while still sticking to the parts of the game that suited them.

The Wallabies started fast, got pushed off their gameplan, were physically dominated, became inaccurate, and got flustered. They went away from their patterns and got caught up in battles where they couldn’t show their wares.

During a patch in Sydney, after England scored their first try, the Wallabies showed a flash of what was on display during the first portion of the Brisbane match.

But Israel Folau’s bounding from one side of the field to the other to create overlaps does not a Test match strategy make. Soon enough England began choking Australia with a better kicking game and physically dominating the rucks.

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The Wallabies missed David Pocock’s strength over the ball after the first Test, but it was still eight versus eight in the pack for the final two. The absence of one player is not an excuse for losing the physical battle.

Michael Cheika has shown an ability to craft a winning strategy worth sticking to throughout his career. But in this series, Eddie Jones’ simple, clear strategy was the winning one.

If Cheika doesn’t tweak his planning, going on current form, losing by 11, 16 and four to England will seem like good times by the end of the Bledisloe Cup and Rugby Championship.

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