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In the past when coach Chris Hickey has justified a ‘win ugly’ strategy I’ve been critical. The ideal for a side like the Waratahs which is invariably loaded with Wallabies is to win in style. But the victory against the ACT Brumbies was one ugly win that the side needed.
After the debacle against a willing (at best) Cheetahs side and a thrashing from the Crusaders, the Waratahs needed a win, no matter how it was achieved.
And the Waratahs achieved this with 9 seconds left to play with a forceful plant of the ball over the line by Sitaleki Timani. ‘A win is a win,’ I once heard the legendary coach Fred Allen tell a supporter when he complained about a lacklustre All Blacks victory.
The Waratahs will have the same feeling.
After Saturday night, they have won two games against the Brumbies at Canberra. That stark statistic indicates just how hard it is to beat the Brumbies at home. This puts ‘the win is a win’ result into an historical context. It is not easy to win at Canberra even when you are strong, let alone now for the Waratahs when they were (are?) in danger of imploding.
For the record, the Brumbies have now won 75 out of their 98 Super Rugby matches in Canberra. This works out to a winning ratio of about 76 per cent. This is the second best winning ratio in Super Rugby after (who else?) the Crusaders with their 80 wins from 99 matches.
So the achievement of the Waratahs in grinding out their victory cannot be dismissed lightly, even though the Brumbies are now a fractured side playing to a non-existent (at least to my eyes) game plan and with their star players (Matt Giteau, Adam Ashley-Cooper) decidedly out of form and playing out of position, or not playing (Rocky Elsom and Stephen Hoiles).
To their credit, too, the Waratahs tried to play a ball-in-hand game, until under pressure they lapsed into their aimless kicking mode.
The problem is that the ball-in-hand game needs an energetic forward pack capable of winning their set pieces and rucks and mauls, and a backline that has passing skills and systems to put runners into gaps to score tries.
Let’s start with the pack.
The lineout and scrum are shaky. I’ve gone on and on about Al Baxter but while he remains a fixture in the scrum, the Waratahs are going to have some very bad days mixed up with some ordinary scrumming days.
Dean Mumm is not an authoritative second-rower and needs to play as a flanker to be an effective member of the pack. Phil Waugh is effective as an abrasive open side flanker, but … The ‘but’ refers to his tendency to give away penalties and to his inability to play efficiently and away from the middle of the field.
The Waratahs lost their chance to have a wide-ranging and abrasive open-side flanker when they got rid of Beau Robinson. There is now a lot more to Robinson’s game than there is to Waugh’s.
But having said that, Waugh is preferable as a captain to Mumm. I would argue, however, that the ideal captain for the Waratahs right now is neither of these two, but Berrick Barnes.
The Waratahs backs have Wallabies in every position but inside centre. They should be a game-breaking unit. But they are not. They seem incapable of putting together a coherent series of attacks, let alone even one coherent and telling attack.
I believe there are two main main reasons for this: one relates to a lack of systems in their attacking arsenal to give an edge to their attack and the second involves personnel who are not up to playing a ball-in-hand game.
You would think, for instance, with a world class running fullback in Kurtley Beale and two pacy Wallabies on the wing, Lachie Turner and Drew Mitchell, that there would be systems in place to run the ball back when opponents kick deep.
I have not been able to observe these systems. Beale is almost always left to try and run the ball back by himself, or resort to chipping or banging in a high kick.
Contrast this with the Reds and their systems, often involving Quade Cooper, which bring in their speedy wingers when the opposition kicks deep. The Cheetahs were blasted out of their game at Brisbane on Saturday afternoon by Digby Ioane and Rod ‘The Rocket’ Davis bursting on to passes set up by Cooper or Will Genia. This meant that the Reds were lethal from the deep positions which they converted into attacks that set up tries or try-scoring situations.
Why can’t the Waratahs do this too? The coaching staff needs to answer this question?
Then there is the matter of the personnel. I’ve gone on a lot about Tom Carter. He is a journeyman playing in a critical position. He is trying to move the ball along with quicker hands and he did make a crucial break late in the game, but … He remains a slow thinker and mover in a position that cries out for a player with more flair and skill.
I have a suggestion for Hickey that he should think about. I have seen Josh Holmes play brilliantly at inside centre in club rugby. He is quick. Quite big (187cm, 94kg) and clever with is passing, as you’d expect from a halfback. His defence probably needs some work. He is a terrific runner with the ball.
A Barnes-Holmes five-eighths combination should release the power and speed of the Waratahs back four.
The time has come, too, for Hickey to look to dropping Luke Burgess and replacing him with the live-wire halfback Brendan McKibbin. McKibbin has been the outstanding club player in Sydney and Brisbane. He has a snappy pass and is a sharp runner around the rucks and scrums.
Burgess fits into the category of being a very good rugby player but a poor halfback. He is a poor halfback because his decision-making (and this was conceded by Rod Kafer during the commentary of the Waratahs-Brumbies match) is poor.
He panics and kicks aimlessly under pressure. He often stands over the ball for an eternity while trying to work out what should be done next. But worse than all of this, his passing is appalling.
Berrick Barnes invariably gets fed harbour bridge passes that are often behind him or too high. Burgess can only pass crisply when he takes a couple of steps. His pass from the ground is so erratic that Barnes can never run on to the ball and pull his backline through with him.
The Brumbies’ last try which brought them level with the Waratahs after the conversion resulted directly from Beale having his clearing kick charged down. But why was this so? The answer is yet another Burgess slow-floater of a pass. The ball arrived in the hands of Beale only nano-seconds ahead of a charging Brumbies player.
If people think that this is too tough and that I’m on a sort of crusade against a likeable and tough competitor, let them look at the play of Will Genia.
If Genia were playing for the Waratahs I believe their backline (even with Carter) would work more lethally than it does right now.
Talking about Genia, he has come back to form after a slow start to the season. And this form has lifted the Reds who have now established a lead at the top of the Australian conference. On their form against the Cheetahs, the Reds look to be Australia’s best chance to make a strong run at winning the tournament.
The Reds play the Lions at Johannesburg on Saturday night.
This will a real test for them whether they have the toughness to beat South African sides in South Africa. This is what has to be achieved to win the Super Rugby tournament these days.