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Defence: Not such an easy fix

Roar Guru
9th December, 2016
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It's not the Wallabies people mind, it's the inconsistency. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Roar Guru
9th December, 2016
14
1942 Reads

The supposed fitness of the Wallabies has been discussed most of this year, with many highlighting the lack of cohesion in the Wallabies last 20 minutes as evidence.

Looking deeper, a lack of fitness should be seen in more tries conceded in the last 20 minutes. A structural issue would be seen as a more even spread in the tries conceded throughout the match.

From the 16 games played, I divided each game into quarters and looked at when the tries were scored.

The June tour by England show a the Wallabies making strong starts at the kick-offs, but losing the last quarter. Fitness certainly would be part of the problem here, with composure close behind.

Total across all three games (tries scored/conceded per quarter)
3/2
2/2
3/1
1/3

New Zealand did a number on us. Of the 45 tries conceded in the year, New Zealand scored 16 at an average of five tries per match. The All blacks started well, controlled the middle of the game and then relaxed in the last 20 minutes when the replacements were made.

0/4
1/5
0/5
1/2

When we look at the spring tour the numbers do look healthier, reaching parity with the Northern Hemisphere teams. Michael Cheika’s half time talks remain potent, but the Wallabies leaked tries on either side of half time, and lost the last quarter as well.

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3/3 4/4 5/4 3/4 All Matches Spring Tour
2/2 2/4 4/4 2/3 Scotland, France, Ireland, England

Looking across the entire year, excluding New Zealand, the numbers look better.

11/7 8/7 11/7 6/8

In attack, the first and thirds quarters look red-hot, but this is somewhat misleading. The spikes here come solely from the first Argentina game, with three tries in the first 20 minutes, two more in the third quarter. Given the win/loss ratio is 50/50, please be careful reading too much into this attacking stat.

In defence, the tries conceded were spread across the entire match. This seems to indicate a structural problem on our defensive set-up, not fitness, as the main cause. This is doubly true looking at the Spring tour, when our team roster was well settled.

It is clear that the Wallabies real problem is a structural defence issue.

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