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Australian rugby union player Luke Burgess is tackled by Jimmy Cowan. AAP Image/Paul Miller
For some weeks now, the gossip around rugby circles is that Robbie Deans would not select Quade Cooper and Kurtley Beale in the same Wallaby starting XV. I must admit to passing on this nugget of misinformation in one of my recent posts. We were all wrong.
The Wallaby team to play Fiji at Canberra on Saturday night has Kurtley Beale starting at fullback and Quade Cooper at number 10. The rest of the backline is predictable enough (Digby Ioane/Adam Ashley Cooper the wingers, centres Rob Horne and Matt Giteau) except for the halfback, Luke Burgess.
Readers of The Roar will know that I don’t rate Burgess, likeable and enthusiastic chap that he is, as a halfback of any quality.
First and foremost, halfbacks have to be good passers of the ball. Burgess passes poorly, and what is more, his timing of pop-up passers to one off runners is appalling.
The great Des Connor, a Test halfback for Australia and New Zealand, says that Burgess has a technical failing in that he passes with his feet together which means he does not have a steady platform to launch his passing from. He always seems to me to resemble a man falling forward off an unsupported ladder when he makes his passes.
The result of this terrible technique is that number 10s do not flourish – ask Matt Giteau and Berrick Barnes – when Burgess is the halfback. Now Cooper has the task of trying to run a backline when he doesn’t know where the ball is going to be delivered to him.
Cooper’s play has been thrilling this year because Will Genia has passed beautiful long, flat and catchable balls to him to run on to. Every now and again, Genia breaks, a tactic that keeps flankers from flying at Cooper.
I’ve thought that aside from Genia, who is in a class of his own with the other Australian halfbacks, that Josh Valentine has been the next best, or next least worse, Australian halfback. Valentine is inclined to be too stroppy and give away penalties by antagonising referees but at his best he is feisty, runs quite well, and with a couple of steps, wind-up passes quite nicely.
Burgess, to his credit, is an excellent defensive halfback.
This may be the reason why he is being played with Cooper and Beale. The two stars, as well, are probably on notice that unless they improve their tackling, they will not be picked for future Tests, especially in the Tri-Nations, where the Springboks particularly will run their big loose forwards right at (and hopefully not through) Cooper’s defensive channel.
The front row is clearly not the starting front row when all the injured props and hookers are back playing. The back five, though, looks to be the best the Wallabies can put out on to the field, while Wycliff Palu and James Horwill remain injured.
Aside from Nathan Sharpe and Rocky Elsom, it is a smallish back five which will have to lift considerably against tougher sides than Fiji. Peter Higginbottom is out injured, but when he comes back, he might be considered a possible number 8 given his size, speed and power.
Deans suggests in classic coach-speak that “the selection template is always a living document.” At least he is not on about ‘the group’ and their ‘journey.’
I think he means that selections change when circumstances change.
I would take from this that Burgess (for his passing) and Beale and Cooper (for the quality and enthusiasm of their defensive work) are on notice this Test to lift their game. The Fijians, if their forwards can give the backs even about 30 per cent of the ball, should provide an interesting challenge for the halfback/number 10 link and the fullback to see if they can translate Super 14 form to the Test level.
For what it is worth, I think Cooper and Beale are up to this task. I don’t think Burgess is.
The problem with this, presuming I’m right, is that if Burgess unravels, then he’ll bring down Cooper with him.