Australia’s James O’Connor, center, tries to break through the tackle of New Zealand All Blacks during the Bledisloe Cup rugby test at the National Olympic Stadium in Tokyo, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2009. All Blacks won the test, 32-19. (AP Photo/Shuji Kajiyama)
The scoreline of 32 – 19 to the All Blacks against the Wallabies in Toyko did not give justice to how tough this Test was for New Zealand to win. The All Blacks scored two tries to one, admittedly. And the Peter Hynes try was awarded by Mark Lawrence, the South African referee when he got tired (it seemed) of waiting for the video referee to make his call.
But for some minutes after this controversial try the Wallabies were camped on the All Blacks tryline. With Sitiveni Sivivatu off the field with a yellow card (which probably should have been red) for one of the most blatant tackles of a catcher in the air, the All Blacks seven-man scrum was being pushed around by the Wallabies.
Wycliff Palu almost got across from one 5m scrum. Then the Wallabies made a series of hit-ups metres out from the All Blacks try line. Why they didn’t go back to Hynes unmarked on the wing is a mystery. But a hit-up went wrong. Andrew Hore snaffled the ball in the maul, and the danger was over.
The Wallabies started strongly with Will Genia making a long break out of defence and then muffing his pass to Adam Ashley-Cooper for the flyer to run in a try. Matt Giteau kicked two penalties to ram home the advantage of the good start.
Then the All Blacks got their game going and took the score to 10 – 6, with a penalty and conversion from Daniel Carter and a brilliant try by Sivivatu in which Riche McCaw handled and passed a couple of times.
Then Carter kicked another penalty, and then came the Hynes try.
I’ve listed these movements in the score line to make the point that the game was there for the taking by the Wallabies, if they had rammed home their advantage of the extra player and extreme field position.
As with the Test in Wellington, the All Blacks came back strongly in the second half scoring 19 points which included another splendid try to Conrad Smith, and a conversion and four more penalties to Carter.
The Wallabies kicked a penalty which was slightly better than the no-scoring second half ‘achieved’ at Wellington.
Something needs to be done about these second collapses by the Wallabies.
In three of the four losses to the All Blacks, they have been ahead at half-time. When Rod Macqueen coached the Wallabies they lost, from memory, only one Test after they were leading at half time. The All Blacks have a similar sort of record.
Clive Woodward told me that when he started coaching England he had a similar problem to that of Deans, with his side invariably going down to losses after being ahead at half-time. The strong first half performances were not matched with a similar strong performance in the second half. His solution was to make his players put on new jerseys and shorts at half time.
The thinking behind this was in the fresh kit the players would believe the psychology that they were starting the second half as if it were the first half. It’s history now that this psychological ploy worked for Woodward and England. In 2007 particularly, especially in the Rugby World Cup tournament, England closed out the matches in which it established a lead, even if it had to wait until the last minute of extra time to do so against the Wallabies in the final.
So I offer this idea (or more accurately, Woodward’s idea) to Deans to consider.
It seems to me, too, that the psychology of the new kit worked in 2007 because Woodward’s pack had become an experienced, tough, resilient and intense set of forwards. This is not what the Wallaby pack is right now. The younger forwards like Benn Robinson and David Pocock were the best in the pack against the All Blacks. The second row was not strong and dominant. In fact it was weak in the lineouts. And the front row, even with Robinson, does not make much of an impact in the rucks and mauls.
As this pack is the best that Deans has right now, he has to hope that they acquire the physical power and the mongrel to take their play to real Test match standards.
Having said this, it is true that this was a much better performance by the Wallabies than the defeatist shambles they offered at Wellington.
They pushed the All Blacks hard throughout the match. At the end of the match when there was a remote chance of snatching a win with two converted tries, they found holes with strong running from Ashley-Cooper, Digby Ione (a strong performance throughout) and James O’Connor.
The execution was just not there. And this underlines another aspect of this current Wallabies side. They are not clinical in the manner of the great sides of the past.
In this Test they had the chance to score four or five times. And each time, somehow, the chance was blown. Again, the backs like the forwards have got to be more ruthless in taking their chances.
It is a mental thing as much as a physical thing. You get the impression that this Wallaby side is too conscious of all the side issues that go on during a match. You hear them yelling out all the time, for instance, trying to alert the referee to an offside or a knock-on.
You never hear McCaw doing this, though. He just thunders around the paddock with a single-minded pursuit of the ball, making his tackles, his catches, his passes and his runs. The All Blacks in general tend towards this style of silent killers.
Another type of rugby call that is getting to me comes from the two commentary teams on Channel 7 and Fox Sports.
I watched both coverages of the Test and the thing that stood out for me was the incessant second-guessing of the referee by Gordon Bray (who has become too partisan), Tim Horan and Dan Crowley of Channel 7, and Phil Kearns and Greg Martin on Fox Sports. Greg Clarke, to his credit, just called the game and left the refereeing to the referee.
As I watched with my son, we both agreed that one of the main reason why rugby supporters have become dissatisfied with rugby this season can be attributed to the woeful television commentaries. Viewers are getting an earful of the commentators bagging the laws, the game, the referee and opposition players.
No wonder viewers believe that rugby league, say, is providing a better spectacle. It is not really the better spectacle at work but much better and more positive commentary.
On neither channel, for instance, was the tension and the high skills displayed by both sides brought out. Nor was there much (any?) analysis of what was happening.
Greg Martin mentioned once that the Wallabies should have moved the ball out to an un-marked Hynes towards the end of the first half. But there was no analysis, however, on how the Wallabies had cleverly directed play to Sivivatu’s wing while he was off the field.
This was, in fact, a terrific Test match.
The play went up and down the field with attack and counter-attack. The lead changed hands a number of time. There was some searing runs and attacks and a couple of clever ensemble tries.
Before the Test I was sceptical of the Wallabies’ chances of going close to their Grand Slam. We will know this time next week whether the quest is on target. But I expect it will be. If the Wallabies can play with the toughness they displayed against what is now a very good All Blacks side, they should beat England.
This means, though, that the Wallabies have to put two strong performances together in successive Tests, which is something they’ve found impossible to do this season.
Campbell Watts
Guest
Hoy, Haven't they brought in the new law recently that the tackler DOES NOT HAVE TO RELEASE THE TACKLED PLAYER?? Kind of blows your theory out of the water doesn't it?
Campbell Watts
Guest
Hoy the AB's were lying everywhere in the rucks because they were hitting them, not out in the backline cluttering things up like your boys! If your forwards were there to compete the rucks and clean out then you'd be getting more/retaining more ball! Simple as that!
Knives Out
Guest
The game isn’t being televised in the UK, Chris. If you want to know what games are in future go to the Paddy Power website and check out the Rugby Union prices. If a game is being televised it will have a small TV icon to the left of the prices. If you drag the cursor over the icon then it states what channel the game is being played on. If it is a UK channel then try the net links JustinTV or p2p. http://www.paddypower.com/bet/rugby-union
reds fan
Guest
OJ. You have described the Wallabies issue very well here. And it has been going on for years. One out running with no support on their tail to secure the ball. They are always 5m behind and by the time they get their its too late or they have to fight like hell to save the ball. It is very very frustrating to watch. They need to watch some old clips from when MacQueen coached. He knew how to control possession.
AndyS
Guest
Agreed, especially if you have called the intent beforehand. As a passing thought though, while there is a specific prohibition on pulling a player out of a maul, there isn't for a ruck. If someone is lying on it, nothing to stop one of your larger units grabbing something and dragging him out.
kingplaymaker
Roar Guru
Greg I don't think league players are the solution, only a part of it. More urgent are getting/keeping the two second rows I mentioned. When I say they are the solution in part too, I mean only as a stop gap until the game grows that little bit more so that Australia can produce all 15 high quality players. It's too big a subject to deal with here and at some point I'll put out an article, but briefly, I don't think there have really ever been any league failures. They have either come over too old (Farrell, Sailor, Rogers), or not been allowed the necessary time to adapt at Super/club level (Tahu, Walker in England), or they have been put in the national team before they have learned the game (Vainikolo, Iestyn Harris), or they have been allowed to run away if the going is a little tough (In England Pryce, Walker). I don't think any young player, given a full run of matches to learn the game, not rushed into a national team too early, and not allowed to run away if things are tough, has ever failed. The fact is that in terms of raw backline talent, there is no one in Australian rugby union at the level of Inglis, Folau, Hayne, Hunt. Perhaps Giteau, but that's all. I agree with you that it's good to get players young, not simply because they are not yet on large contracts, but because they can learn the game much better, which is why I specifically mention those four. Inglis, Folau, Hayne and Hunt are still very young and have mountains of game-breaking talent, the kind Australia does not have, and are there to be taken by a subtle and persuasive talker...John O'Neill? The real specialness of these players is the key. For example, Digby Ioane is excellent, but Sivivatu is extraordinary. One will help win a match, the other will do it on his own. It's this top level that Australia lack.
ohtani's jacket
Guest
Well, they weren't getting penalised like they were in the first fifteen minutes, so they must've been doing something different. Unless Lawrence starts penalising the other side when they change ends. I don't know what you expect when the Wallabies play the All Blacks. If the Wallabies want good ball, they need to generate it themselves. Instead of one off runners running into two or three All Black defenders, with no support and nothing in the way of arriving forwards, how about controlling the phases for a change? This was the seventh time in a row that NZ slowed the game down in the second half and controlled the breakdown. The Wallabies are either slow learners or not thinking straight. I felt for Wallaby supporters at the game, but the team do nothing to help themselves. It's not going to get any easier on the Grand Slam tour. This is rugby in 2009. Sides would rather lose a man for ten minutes than concede a try because all the evidence suggests that the ten minute period is more manageable than being seven points adrift.
fox
Guest
"Adjusting to the ref"..... That is absurd. There were a number of clear impunities from the AB forwards forwards. There were more yellow card-worthy incidents in this match than any other I have seen in the tri-nations. The AB's were allowed to be cynical. If the Wallabies have to adjust to cheating better than their opposition then the game is clearly not worth following anymore. You can have enough ball to win yes, but if it's been consistently held back for precious seconds by hands and bodies thrown over it off feet then defenses have ample opportunity to adjust. It is the referee's job to ensure a fair contest for the ball. That means ensuring an attacking team gets the opportunity to recycle quickly, as much as it means giving defenses adequate time to get their hands on the ball (when they are the tackler, or there quickly and come in through the gate prior to a ruck being formed).
ohtani's jacket
Guest
It's unlikely that I'll ever watch the game on television, but there's two points I'd like to make: The All Blacks were penalised a lot in the early going but not so often in the second half. Whatever it is that they're doing in the rucks and mauls, they're obviously adjusting to the ref. Do the Wallabies ever adjust to the game situation? They try the same approach game after game. Robbie Deans complaining about All Black tactics is absurd. Richie McCaw is his very own Frankenstein's Monster. Now that we've got a blindside running around who's as big a nuisance as So'oialo at his peak, Australia won't have any hope at the breakdown unless they get a better backrow. The South Africans wouldn't have won the Tri-Nations this year without the strength of their backrow. This is an area where the Wallabies are languishing behind. The fact that the NZ tight five and even their backs pile in just makes it worse. Secondly, the Wallabies had more than enough ball to win. The way some of you are going on it's as if they never recycled the ball once. They're just a poor attacking side. That was evident from their first match against the Barbarians this season and has continued through to now. If the All Blacks had fired, they probably could've scored three or four tries. Their backline movements are far more fluid. The Wallabies have this fixation with the inside channel. It's like they all think they're Sterling Mortlock.
Justin
Guest
I didnt watch the League but I saw the highlight of the first try and was absolutely aghast at the woeful Eng defence. Who the hell gives Inglis an overlap to work with in the first 5 mins of a test. Literally one of the worst pieces of defence I have ever seen in relation to the game situation.
Justin
Guest
Greg I agree completely that you cannot begin to argue about fortuitous wins etc. If Wales were so much better then why could they not win? Its best to accept win/loss records as they are. Do we look at the good teams and say they were lucky to win certain matches or they won because they know how to win? You can change it around to suit your argument but in the end its the winning that counts....
Greg Russell
Roar Guru
KO, I do not disagree with any of your opinions, but my comment on the Deans record against teams other than NZ was one simply based on scores. If you are going to start saying "This win wasn't so good because of that, and that win wasn't of consequence because of this", then the same logic also has to be applicable to Australia's losses. In other words, one can argue, as Spiro does, that Australia's performance in Tokyo had a lot of merit even though it was a loss, and so on. I was just trying to stand aside from such opinions, no matter how well reasoned, and focus on the actual results. As for the Deans game plan, quite clearly it is just an Australianized version of his modus operandi at the Crusaders. Contrary to popular belief, that was not based on weight of possession. Rather, it was based on stout defence, and attack from turnovers. One problem he has with Australia is the lack of appropriate personnel. Barnes, when not injured, can play the role of A Mauger, but there isn't really a L MacDonald, and there aren't backrowers like McCaw and Tuiali'i who are fantastic at running with the ball in opening space and linking with outside backs. The other thing is that as defences and strategies have evolved, this sort of gameplan has become less effective, in fact it's debatable that it was ever effective in international rugby. It is legitimate to ask, as you do, whether Deans has improved players at the Wallabies. His record at the Crusaders makes it almost undeniable that he is good at improving players individually. That is a skill one does not lose by changing countries. But what may hinder him with the Wallabies is that he doesn't get a six-month block to work with a player individually, as he did at the Crusaders. I know international rugby teams have a lot more time together than international football teams, but it is still valid to point out that no-one expects Fabio Capello to make England's football players individually better - he simply doesn't get enough time for that.
stuff happens
Guest
I entirely agree with you Harry. Spiro, could I suggest you bring this up with FoxSports. These posts are littered with complaints about the appalling bias of Kearns & Martin.One key point to stress to Fox is that this stuff does rugby no good at all in Australia. The rugby audience is not stupid and bias is embarassing for us.Cheers.
stuff happens
Guest
Greg, AFL are increasingly targeting young blokes in schools in NSW who are potential union forwards. AFL is full of big men and these are the guys we nearly always lack in union.
Greg Russell
Roar Guru
Thanks to everyone for your comments - it's good to have a discussion in which people agree, disagree and exchange views in a civilized and reasoned way (not always the case at this website!). If I could just address KPM's fervour for rugby league players. My view is that he's both correct and incorrect. The sense in which he is correct would have been obvious to anyone who turned on the TV just a few hours after the Tokyo test, and saw Greg Inglis tear apart England, and in particular his rugby union-bound opposite Lee Smith (KO, any comment?). It's pretty obvious that if you want to be the best in rugby, then you need to turn up with some truly special players who can really make a difference, a la McCaw, Carter, du Preez, Matfield, Habana (I apologize to any NHers for my SH perspective - it's not bias, just what I know best). Such talent is exceptionally rare, and in Australia it seems to all get siphoned off by AFL and rugby league these days. However KO is also correct in not accepting "that league players are the answer" - many converts testify to this, with very few having been able to have an impact in union that matched their impact in league. This is not to say that a Greg Inglis or Jarryd Hayne or Billy Slater or Petero Civo could not duplicate Jason Robinson or Brad Thorn, but statistically the odds of this are low. Obviously they have the physical gifts, but there is a complexity to rugby that is not quickly learned, sometimes never learned, and the expression of individual brilliance in rugby is far more reliant on having a platform from the 14 other men than is the case in league. Last weekend the Kangaroos simply got Inglis one-on-one against Lee Smith, but that is much, much harder to do in rugby, and generally requires ensemble work by the rest of the team (with Habana's intercepts being an obvious exception). If the ARU is to recruit from league, it should get players at a much younger age, and preferably with some background in rugby, e.g. someone like Karmichael Hunt would have been a good asset (would he not have been an Australian Leon MacDonald?). When Inglis was 19 he was already a superstar in league and he renewed his contract with Melbourne for about $400k pa. Why could the ARU not offer him $600k pa at that stage? He would still have been young enough to learn the code, and Blind Freddie could see he would have been a bullseye. At exactly this time the ARU was negotiating contracts with Giteau and Tuqiri for more than $1m pa, so there was definitely the money, if they had the brains and the balls.
Hoy
Roar Guru
Just got to rant sometimes. I have a few in this thread. It just makes me so mad...
Derm
Roar Guru
Ok I won't bother replying. Doh!
harry
Guest
The sooner we get foreign commentators to all sport the better sport will be to watch. There's nothing worse than watching a game with one eyed commentators.The last game in Tokyo I had to turn my sound off on both channels,so I could enjoy the game as it was..
justinb
Guest
now now, only South Africans are entitled to feel victimised by the ref, the global conspiracy to prevent the Boks winning every game ;-)
Hoy
Roar Guru
In reading that Dwyer article I have to agree with him on a lot of points. Begin rant. Our scrum has come along in leaps and bounds recenlty. I still don't think it is given any respect by referees. I have noted all season that opposition scrums can't quite handle our props now (as I see it in my limited knowledge of the art of scrumming), and their props are continually placing hands on the ground. Non stop. Yet we are the only team in the world who has been penalised for it recently. We also seem to be the only team in the world continually penalised on our own damn feed!! Now I know sometimes we are at fault. Fine, I am sure sometimes we do illegal things. I am also deadly certain opposition scrums do the same and never get penalised like we do. And one more thing for referees: what does it benefit the solid scrum that we have now, to bind illegally, take the scrum down illegally etc when we are attacking?? Why would we do that? Yet the refs get sucked in everytime. F-ing frustrating. End rant.