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Cheika's Wallabies future shaped in September

1st June, 2017
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Michael Cheika might be doing more to improve the Wallabies than we think. (AAP Image/SNPA, Ross Setford)
Expert
1st June, 2017
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How many Test wins does Wallabies coach Michael Cheika need to chalk up this year to keep his job?

After a horror 2016 in which Australia won just six of their 15 matches – their worst season in over a decade – it’s a question worth contemplation with the international season close to kick-off.

The ARU continue to dither over which Super Rugby team will be culled, but the governing body will be firm in their view that the Wallabies are their only hope of lifting Australian rugby out of a deep rut.

Australia’s five Super Rugby teams’ results have been dismal. Fans are staying away and switching off. Angst abounds over the impending loss of the Melbourne Rebels or Western Force.

It looks almost certain that the Brumbies will be Australia’s sole representative in the Super Rugby finals and they appear long odds to challenge the top five teams. These are relatively gloomy times for a proud rugby nation. The international season can’t come soon enough.

Initially, the June Tests should provide at the very least a bit of respite from the often humiliating losses the Aussie Super Rugby teams have been on the end of – mostly from Kiwi teams – for most of the past three months.

For Cheika, it will be a chance to test some new combinations in preparation for what’s set to be another rugged Rugby Championship.

Getting the best out of Allan Ala’alatoa, Rory Arnold, Adam Coleman and Samu Kerevi will be crucial as will answering the question of whether newbies such as Ned Hanigan, Jack Dempsey, Karmichael Hunt, Marika Koroibete and Eto Nabuli show enough to be able to mix it with the All Blacks, Springboks and Pumas.

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Fiji are on the menu first and shouldn’t pose too many problems. The Wallabies’ 2011 loss to Samoa should stave off complacency.

Scotland are the biggest threat to the Wallabies during the month. Only two of their Test players have been dragged away by the British and Irish Lions in New Zealand and the Scots have pushed the Wallabies hard in recent meetings.

The Wallabies have prevailed by one point, one point and six points in the last three Tests after losing the previous two: in the driving rain in Newcastle in 2013 and at Murrayfield in 2009. Italy should get belted in Brisbane.

The Super Rugby season climaxes in July and the start of August and will likely mean the Brumbies snap at the heels of the top guns of the competition without getting to the last two weeks.

And then the Wallabies step up for the chance to redeem themselves after a seven-Test Bledisloe and Rugby Championship in which I think they’ll need to at least equal their three victories from last season.

Anything less and Cheika could be shown the door.

Naturally, the ARU wouldn’t want to feel the pressure to sack a Wallabies coach around the same time as cutting a Super Rugby team. It’s the kind of upheaval that could turn the sport in Australia into a basket case. Rugby could flirt with being a true niche winter sport.

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Cheika has proven to be a fine coach – he led the Waratahs to a Super Rugby title in 2014 and a year later took the Wallabies to a World Cup final.

However, a 40 per cent winning rate last year – especially an emphatic 3-0 series defeat to England at home – meant Cheika rapidly shed the goodwill he’d built up over two years. So where does he get his three wins from?

It seems far-fetched that the Wallabies can beat the All Blacks in any of the three Tests in Sydney and Dunedin in August and Brisbane in October.

Michael Cheika, Wallabies head coach stares in bemusement

(AAP Image/ David Rowland)

The All Blacks boast phenomenal depth in every position and will be hardened following their series against the Lions.

To think that one of Beauden Barrett or Aaron Cruden won’t start, Sam Cane, Jerome Kaino, Matt Todd or Ardie Savea will miss out on a back-row spot and two of Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitelock, Luke Romano and Scott Barrett won’t grab a second-row jersey is staggering.

The Wallabies were beaten by significant margins in 2016 and with an Australian Super Rugby team yet to beat a New Zealand team this year out of 18 matches, there’s no evidence the gap in class is narrowing.

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That leaves a stretch of four games – home and away against the Boks and Argentina – that might decide Cheika’s fate.

It starts in Perth against South Africa, who are also coming off a shocking season last year when they won just four of 12 Tests.

There’s a good feeling in South Africa that they’ll turn their form around, essentially because Springboks coach Allister Coetzee is expected to pick a lot more players from the Lions, who have easily been the most dominant of their Super Rugby sides over the past three seasons.

Last year, it seemed Coetzee didn’t rate the Lions, choosing only two in his run-on side.
But there are some predictions as many as ten players from the Johannesburg-based team will get the nod in the starting XV to face France in a three-Test series in June.

Lions skipper and No.8 Warren Whiteley has been named as the new Springboks captain while Lions’ backline aces Andries Coetzee, Lionel Mapoe, Courtnall Skosan and Ross Cronje are set to bring plenty of spark.

Who knows how the Wallabies will be travelling when they arrive in Perth, but the Boks will be a much more formidable side this year. Their pack, as usual, won’t be bossed around.

A Wallabies loss in Western Australia would put Cheika’s reign in serious jeopardy.

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The Wallabies then move to Canberra to take on Argentina. The Jaguares have been disappointing this season. They seem to have stagnated and whereas defensively they’ve been bruising in recent years, they’ve been below-par in this department in 2017.

As it stands now, Australia should start as strong favourites to rack up a victory.

The two-match road trip starting at the end of September is daunting.

Australia's head coach Michael Cheika

(AFP PHOTO / MARTIN BUREAU)

Winning in Bloemfontein is arguably a more likely prospect than bagging victory in Mendoza.

Ludicrously, Argentina took their ‘home’ Rugby Championship clash against the Wallabies to Twickenham last year after a political fracas, and were beaten.

The Wallabies won’t get any such favours this October. The Estadio Malvinas Argentinas Stadium will be hostile.

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Does Cheika get the three Rugby Championship wins he potentially needs to keep his job?

I sense Wallabies fans can cop losses to the All Blacks juggernaut at the moment, but a defeat to the Springboks at home might be too tough to swallow.

For Cheika, the clash against the Boks at nib Stadium in Perth on September 9 appears pivotal if he’s to remain coach of the Wallabies for the end-of-season Spring tour.

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