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1984 Grand Slam Wallabies Mark Ella, Steve Williams, current coach Robbie Deans, Alan Jones, Roger Gould, Simon Poidevin and Andrew Slack arrive at the John Eales Medal Awards in Sydney, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2009. AAP Image/Sergio Dionisio
The voting outcome of the 2009 John Eales Medal, voted for by the players, and for the Australia’s Choice Wallaby of the Year award, voted for by the public online, provides an insight into the mentality and playing strength of the Wallabies as they begin their Spring Tour.
Matt Giteau was the winner of the John Eales Medal. And Benn Robinson was Australia’s Choice.
If I had to decide on the merits of the two winners, I’d vote for Robinson.
The tubby prop, who is quick and powerful around the field with the ball and strong in the tackle, is the only current Wallaby who would be seriously considered for a World XV position.
In my opinion, Giteau too often flatters to deceive.
He does not take control in the important matches the way, say, Dan Carter does and Stephen Larkham used to do. Giteau ‘won’ a Test against England a few years ago with a phenomenal display, but this is the only crunch Test where he has totally dominated and led the Wallabies to a victory.
The voting tallies for the John Eales medal, which took in the 2008 Spring Tour and all the subsequent Tests up to the end of the 2009 Tri-Nations, also make for sobering reading.
Matt Giteau 190 votes
Nathan Sharpe 162 votes
George Smith 161 votes
Benn Robinson 132 votes
Adam Ashley-Cooper 106
The first point to make is that Robinson and Ashley-Cooper deserved far more points than they received. I believe they should have been comfortably first and second in the tallies.
How could Nathan Sharpe, who was dropped at one stage, garner the points tally he did, for instance?
The points allocation demonstrates to me where the players believed their leaders were. The leaders were three veterans who, in the case of Sharpe (certainly), Smith and Giteau (possibly) have seen their best days. The points were allocated to these leaders were more in line with their status within the group than for their actual performances on the field.
And it is interesting to note that these top three players, according to the players themselves, have had their positions under review by Robbie Deans.
Clearly, Deans does not see the top three (Sharpe is currently out injured) in the same light as their team-mates.
For what it is worth, I believe that Deans is right and the Wallaby squad wrong on these picks.
Attending the John Eales medal dinner as special guests were some members of the fabled 1984 Grand Slam Wallabies: the skipper Andrew Slack, David Campese, Mark Ella, Simon Poidevin, Nick Farr-Jones, Steve Williams, Roger Gould and the coach Alan Jones.
The thought came to me as these players were being introduced that not one of the current players, though possibly Benn Robinson, would have been selected for the run-on squad in 1984:
Roger Gould, Brendan Moon, Andrew Slack, David Campese, Michael Lynagh, Mark Ella, Nick Farr-Jones: Steve Tuynman, Simon Poidevin, Steve Cutler, Steve Williams, David Codey, Andy McIntyre, Tommy Lawton, Enrique Rodriquez.
I would go so far as to say that this might be the greatest Wallaby side of them all.
They had a tremendous pack that achieved the famous push-over try against Wales at Cardiff, one of the most humiliating incidents in Welsh rugby history.
Mark Ella scored a try in all four Grand Slam victories, the first and only player to have this. The backline had thrust, speed, skill and the genius of Campese, rugby’s greatest ever broken field runner.
In achieving their Grand Slam, the Wallabies conceded only one try, scored by Wales towards the end of a Test in which they were being overwhelmed. This ‘one-try only’ mark was also achieved by the 1999 Rugby World Cup winning Wallabies (a side of comparable all-round strength and brilliance), who also gave away a try in a match they were winning comfortably against the United States.
The 2009 Wallabies do not compare, right now, with their 1984 Grand Slam counterparts.
If they achieve a Grand Slam it will be, in a sense, a greater triumph because the team, on paper but hopefully not on the field, does not look like a team of world-beaters.
There is a nice historical irony in all of this, however.
The 1984 Wallabies set off on their Grand Slam tour after losing the Bledisloe Cup series to the All Blacks, two Tests to one. The Wallabies won the first Test and lost the next two when the All Blacks fullback kicked 5 penalty goals in each of the Tests.
And the fullback’s name?
Robbie Deans, who is now the coach of a Wallabies side beaten in the Bledisloe Cup series that is looking for glory with a second Grand Slam truimph for Australian rugby.
As Alan Jones likes to say about what has happened in the past: “The dogs are barking but the caravan moves on.”