Australia better off losing to Wales? History repeats

After a World Cup Saturday in which so much history repeated itself, it seems appropriate that I reprise the heading of my article of last week.

It surprised me that so many readers took so seriously my suggestion about Australia losing to Wales, for I wrote “of course it is absurd to suggest such a course of action.”

I also wrote “it is undeniable that the Wallabies would now be in a stronger position had they lost in Cardiff”, and the weekend has shown that I was correct: Australia could not have done any worse in playing South Africa.

I always thought there was little difference between having to play England and South Africa at the quarter-final stage, for both teams are similar in ability and style, and both teams seek to attack Australia in the same way, which is through set-piece power and physicality at the breakdown. Of course there are small differences: the English scrum is better where the South African lineout, through Matfield, is better, and England have a better 10 where South Africa’s biggest backline threat is Habana. But in essence both teams pose much the same threat to Australia.

The feeling that England was an easier opponent undoubtedly came from South Africa’s defeat of them in pool play. However that 36-0 scoreline was misleading. For one thing the match was not the demolition it was made out to be: England had 58% possession, 50% territory, and more time in the opposition’s 22 (6’43” vs 5’34”). Further, England did not have Jonny Wilkinson, with whom they are quite obviously a different team.

But I digress. Here is how history repeated on Saturday.

Firstly, Australia was eliminated at the quarter-final stage by England, exactly as in 1995.

Actually, it’s much worse than that: Wayne Smith of The Australian has pointed out that the last three times Australia has been eliminated at a World Cup, it has been at the hands of England, namely in 2007, 2003 and 1995. The only other team to eliminate Australia from a World Cup is France, way back in the inaugural event in 1987. If Australians think that New Zealand has a problem with the Wallabies and with France at World Cups, then they should wake up to the more repugnant reality that the Wallabies have an even bigger problem with England.

Smith’s interpretation of this is that England is showing up “systemic problems [in Australian rugby] that need addressing.” While this is undeniably true, one needs to be careful: who wants to play like England? That is soporific and it would kill the game in Australia, where the footballing marketplace is cutthroat.

Of course it’s not just the fact of defeat, but also that we’ve seen the mode of defeat before, right down to little details like Tuqiri being the only Australian to score a try, exactly as in the 2003 World Cup final. What irony: the much maligned Tuqiri cannot score a try to save himself against all the minnows, but in the one match that really counts, he’s the only Australian who manages to dot down.

Secondly, history repeated by New Zealand suffering a shock elimination to France, exactly as in 1999.

Once again it’s actually much worse than that: this defeat was at quarter-final rather than semi-final stage, this New Zealand team was much better than the 1999 team (which was clearly deficient in several major ways), and it’s debatable that the 2007 French team is any better than the 1999 team, which at least played 40 minutes of sparkling rugby to win.

Thirdly, and incredibly, New Zealand repeated the mistake of switching a full-back to the 13 position in the middle of a World Cup campaign: in 1999 it was Christian Cullen, in 2003 Leon MacDonald, and this time, in an exact reversal of 2003, Muliaina played at 13 and MacDonald at 15.

Fourthly, New Zealand’s loss to France was remarkably similar to their only other significant loss in the last two years, which was to Australia at the MCG this year.

In both matches New Zealand looked set to be easy winners for most of the first half; both matches turned on a questionable sin-binning in the second half; and on both occasions the match-winning try came via a long break through the (outside-)centre’s channel (Mortlock at the MCG, Michalak in Cardiff).

At the time Nick Farr-Jones said of NZ’s loss at the MCG that it looked to him like the loss they had to have in order to prepare themselves for the World Cup. As it has turned out the All Blacks learned precisely nothing from the MCG, for at Cardiff they were just as clueless once the opposition found momentum.

Lastly, there are many ways in which the second Saturday match was a repeat of the very recent history from earlier that afternooon: a highly fancied southern hemisphere team lost to a written-off northern hemisphere team; 2 points was the margin in both cases; both favourites went into the match with a key player, also their goalkicker, not 100% fit (Mortlock and Carter); both Australia and New Zealand seemed to suffer from a lack of challenging pool matches in comparison with their opponents; and both seemed to read too much into defeats by their opponents in earlier pool play.

Of course both matches were different in the way they unfolded: New Zealand dominated possession, whereas Australia only managed to split possession (contrary to reports that England dominated possession); and England are deemed to have “won the collisions”, something that certainly cannot be said of the French.

But if one looks at the bigger picture one sees a striking and worrying similarity in these two matches: they were both won by the team playing highly negative rugby.

In England’s case this is obvious. To hear Brian Ashton describe a victory that did not involve a single try as being “better than magnificent” is, if one thinks about it, a dark, dark day for rugby. In cricketing terms this is equivalent to a team “winning” the opening day of a test match by making 1/150 off 90 overs; not only would Australia never contemplate this, but if it did happen then Ricky Ponting would be sacked before he even reached the press conference.

In the case of the French game the negativity was more subtle, but it is made obvious by the statistics from the match: New Zealand had 71% possession, and – this is quite unbelievable – France made 178 tackles to New Zealand’s 36. I believe one sees in the latter statistic the game-plan of French coach Bernard Laporte.

For months Laporte worked very hard to unsettle New Zealand psychologically, doing things like wondering whether New Zealand players are on drugs, and changing the French jersey to a darker shade of blue in the hope (successful as it turned out) that New Zealand would be denied playing in black. Even right up to the moment of the kickoff there were French psychological ploys in the way they stood almost on top of the New Zealanders as they did the haka. (This was an early harbinger of things to come: why didn’t McCaw have the presence of mind to take his players 20 m back so that they would have more room?)

While one can recognize all these ploys, it hardly puts a sport in a good light when such practices are considered necessary and part of the game.

To the game itself, Laporte seems to have put two things together: (1) That New Zealand scores most of its tries from turnover ball, and is much weaker at creating tries when itself in possession. This leads to the paradox that a team in possession of the ball is in much more danger of conceding a try to New Zealand than if they have the ball. (2) That before this tournament the IRB instructed touch judges not to give referees any assistance in the refereeing of matches. This has had the consequence, for example, that as a referee focuses on the breakdown itself, the touch judges may not alert him that the defending team is offside.

From these realities seems to have sprung a deliberate tactic of France backing its defence and being happy for New Zealand to have the ball – how else to explain the tackle count? Of course this is dangerous, but plainly it worked. The French defence was virtually impenetrable by virtue of being able to stand offside with impunity, while New Zealand was denied counter-attacking opportunities because the French barely used the ball.

Where does all this leave us in terms of the future of rugby? it leaves me pleading for a game in which the negative play of France and England cannot pay off. Yes, both these teams had famous victories on the weekend, and there is romance in that. But there is no romance in the way they played.

In England’s case it obvious why one should say this. In France’s one can see this by considering what would happen in rugby league if one team had only 30% possession and had to make five-times more tackles: it would be a slaughter to the other team. Of course one should not expect that rugby apes league; however rugby is meant to be a sport about having possession, rather than being a sport where it is profitable not to have the ball, the way in which France won.

My other wish for the future concerns refereeing. Many in New Zealand are criticizing Wayne Barnes for some of his poor decisions. Rather than take this approach, I would prefer to recognize the impossibility of what referees are expected to do: one man must apply complex laws to a game where many people are in motion at once and much of the action is highly concealed, most notably at breakdowns and in scrums. It’s an impossible task. Let’s give the referee more help (touch judges, TMOs), and let’s simplify the game.

Where does all this leave us in terms of this tournament? If history continues to repeat, then England or South Africa will win. Who honestly wants this history to repeat? True, the Argentinians are just as negative in the way they play, but at least a victory by them would be a fairytale.

More realistically, the French might win. It’s true that under Laporte they play the least attractive rugby of their history, but what a history they have. Now they have a chance to crown this history, and the rest of us have the spine-tingling pleasure of hearing La Marseillaise – surely the world’s greatest national anthem – sung in Paris. For the sake of the tournament, that is no bad thing.