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The Wallabies bring clarity amid the Olympics murkiness

16th August, 2016
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Just make sure David Pocock is on the field. That's pretty straightforward, no? (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
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16th August, 2016
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After peering through a thicket of expectations, media coverage, medal tallies and more media coverage, it’s refreshing to take a few minutes off thinking about our Olympic team to consider the Wallabies.

Did Cate and Bronte Campbell choke? Did they just underperform? Are we supposed to just be happy they tried hard?

Has the Australian swim team failed to adjust to racing late at night? Are they trying to hold peak form for too long?

Maybe Olympic competition is really, really hard and that’s it?

Have the Australian track cycling team underperformed? Is the string of placings outside the medals bad luck in a sport measured to hundredths of a second, or are they failing?

It’s all so much easier to consider the Wallabies. They are coming off a three-nil flogging, composed largely of players from Super Rugby teams that for the most part struggled to live up to the price of admission.

No wavering illusions of grandeur here.

A whitewash and poor provincial play is the state of things heading into the first Rugby Championship weekend.

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The main debates inside the country about the Wallabies currently: are our two best players – David Pocock and Israel Folau – even in the right position for the team to perform? How many of the Dad’s Army should be played?

It’s all so much clearer than asking what leads the best swimmer in the world to freeze for less than half a second on the blocks, panic in the first leg, go faster than world-record pace at the turn, and then fade badly late to finish outside the medal?

This is much easier than whether we honestly evaluate the likelihood of Anna Meares, at 32 years old, winning every race she entered by a bike-length on the way to an onslaught of gold. Or is she really the flag bearer because she represents a long career of excellence, perseverance and, of course, medals on the international stage, but isn’t likely to be quite as quick this year as in 2012.

With the Wallabies, things are simpler. Yes, we should pick every Dad’s Army player who is better than their counterparts from the English series. No, Folau isn’t a great centre yet. Yes, we do need David Pocock and Michael Hooper on the field together, and yes, New Zealand are huge favourites to win every game against us in the foreseeable future.

Actually, there is one non-confusing Olympic moment that correlates well.

That now infamous image of Usain Bolt pulling ahead in the 100 metres and juuust easing up enough to look across the field a huge grin on his face.

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Usain Bolt is New Zealand right now. Justin Gatlin (leaving doping out of this) is either England or South Africa. The Wallabies are the next of the futile chasers.

New Zealand are grinning. The Wallabies are puffing, working and striving.

Steve Hansen has the luxury of taking a jab at Australia, about whatever he wants really, because he does have a wealth of sparkly jewels to choose from across the park. On the other hand, Michael Cheika is trying to squeeze the best out of what he has, which hasn’t been much this year.

If we want to catch them, it’ll need to come on a bad day – even Bolt false started his way out of a World Championships final.

But as it stands, the Wallabies are looking ahead trying to pass them, but really just getting close enough to catch a glimpse of that cheesy grin.

New Zealand haven’t had the greatest track record in Sydney in recent years, but that’s like saying Bolt is nearing 30 and probably doesn’t take kindly to running twice on the same day now. Trying to manufacture a reason why the clearly dominant partner isn’t the clear favourite works until you look at the context.

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Yes, Bolt is older. But his nearest competitor, Gatlin, is older still and hasn’t won since 2004.

The All Blacks may have a few untested combinations and might need to iron those out, and they haven’t played well in Sydney recently. But the Wallabies haven’t won anything of significance since 2011 and most of their players, due to appalling Super Rugby play, have enough cobwebs of their own to worry about. And the Wallabies also only just broke a streak of All Black wins in Sydney that ran almost all the way through the Robbie Deans years.

In the first Rugby Championship clash this weekend, I hope Cheika sticks to what I outlined above: get your best players on the field. After that, I’m simply looking for more intelligence than the boneheaded and overawed play we saw against England.

This week I’m going to enjoy the clarity of watching the Wallabies. We’re rank outsiders against a team that still has the hallmarks of greatness in its ranks.

If we catch the All Blacks on a false-start day, we might nab a classic victory. If not, of course we’ll just have to settle for parsing the grey areas of whatever performance we see on the night.

And unlike the Olympics, we’ll only have to wait one more week for the rematch.

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