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Ireland's Donncha O'Callaghan is tackled by Australia's Rocky Elsom, left, and Quade Cooper, right, during the international Rugby Union test match between Australia and Ireland in Brisbane, Australia, Saturday, June 26, 2010. (AP Photo/Tertius Pickard)
Just before half-time at Brisbane, with the score 15 – 11 in favour of a plucky Ireland, Quade Cooper took a pass metres out from the try line, ghosted through a tight defensive line of two loose forwards, stepped right and left leaving two other defenders stranded, and plunged to score a decisive try for the Wallabies.
The energy, inventiveness and effectiveness of the brilliant series of moves on the part of Cooper reminded me of those street dancers in New York who do their sensational tricks and whirls and head-stands while essentially staying on the same spot.
This was rugby magic by Cooper. And best of all it was not of the headless chook variety that gets your own side into trouble. It was as effective as it was brilliant.
Phil Kearns was moved to say in his Fox Sports commentary: ‘Not many players in the world would have scored that try.’
Wrong. No other player in the world would have scored that try.
Cooper has emerged as the great player and number 10 Australia needs to be a credible force in world rugby.
It is now becoming a terrible thought that if anything happens to Cooper to keep him off the field, the Wallabies will lapse into a lacklustre outfit with a pack that lacks mongrel and a backline that has some pace, but not much size. This is a handicap against strong defensive sides.
James O’Connor is becoming an extremely good Test player. But he has to make his breaks by sheer pace and incredible footwork. Against a good defensive side, a little bit of heft would help too.
I was interested in the efforts of the Wallaby scrum without Nathan Sharpe. There has been the suspicion that Sharpe is not much of a shover in the second row. And it did seem to me that the Chisolm/Mumm shove provided more energy for the props than the Sharpe/Mumm second row of the earlier Tests this season.
The theory of second rowers is becoming quite refined these days. The tendency with the strong packs, to take the Springboks as an example, is to have an air man/jumper at number 4 in the lineout (Victor Matfield) and a lifter/shover (Bakkies Botha) at number 2.
The All Blacks play Brad Thorne in the lifter/shover role most successfully.
The Wallabies do not seem to play to this system. If they did they’d play Sharpe (when he is available) at number 2, the way Daniel Vickerman was played. This would mean that Dean Mumm or whoever would play at number 4.
Personally I think this would make sense, provided Sharpe or whoever was the designated number 2 did actually provide a great deal of heft and shove to the scrums.
The Sun-Herald ran a photo of Luke Burgess after he scored his sensational intercept try from the base of the scrum with jubilant Wallabies jumping over him. Luke Who’s Back, the headline screamed. It was a terrific piece of rugby theft on the part of Burgess. He read the play. Had quick hands to snaffle the inside pass. And he was off in a flash to the tryline.
Burgess was helped by the fact that the Wallaby scrum had turned Ireland and allowed Burgess to get into a position to make his snatch.
The game plan clearly was for Burgess to run some distance before finding a forward runner. This was not particularly effective, except on this occasions when Burgess ran himself. The Wallaby pack, including Rocky Elsom, is not a strong pack of runners for one-off hit-ups.
At the start of the Test, the Wallabies caught the kick-off. A strong maul was formed. Burgess got the ball. And he put in a box kick. This kick was caught by Ireland inside the Wallaby half. Several phases later Ireland forced a penalty that was successful converted.
This type of kicking was then continued by most of the backs. And then late in the second half Kurtley Beale had the ball only metres from Ireland’s tryline, and with a runner on his outside. Beale put through a grubber kick which went out of play.
Why are the Wallabies kicking so much? It is certainly not part of Robbie Deans’ strategy. He was asked at half-time about this. He stated quite tersely: ‘We need to spend more time on the ball.’
I took this to mean that the Wallabies should keep the ball in hand as much as possible.
This box kick and other types of kicking mania, as it happened, also infected the way the All Blacks played against Wales at Hamilton. Jimmy Cowan kicked away even more ball than Burgess and his mates combined. The result was that Wales, like Ireland, were given a lot more ball to play with than their forwards were able to win from set pieces by themselves.
There are two points I’d make about all this.
First, if the Wallabies and the All Blacks do this type of kicking against the Springboks in the Tri-Nations they will be slaughtered. The Springboks, like the Bulls, like to run the ball only from fractured play, rather than set pieces. So kicking to them encourages them to bring their big runners like Pierre Spies into play.
Second, the Box Kick Axe needs to be applied to players, especially halfbacks, who insist on putting in box/chip kicks. This sanction is that if the kick does nor result in a turnover to the kicking side, the box kicker is immediately subbed.
In summarising the Wallabies preparation for the Tri-Nations we have seen a patchy performance against Fiji: a brilliant back display to defeat England: a lacklustre all-round performance to lose to England: and another generally lacklustre performance to defeat Ireland which was highlighted by some magically effective play by Quade Cooper.
Aside from the Test against England at Perth the backline has not looked to be length-of-the-field menacing. The scrum has improved and will be much better when the injured front rowers come back. Digby Ioane’s hard-shouldered, knee-pumping aggression on the burst will be missed.
On the strength of what we’ve seen so far the Wallabies will do well to win all their Tri-Nations Tests played in Australia. They look like real outsiders, though, to win Tests out of Australia, unless there is a huge improvement in the play of the pack.