Rugby World Cup winning coach Rod Macqueen has always been renowned for sending out tough-to-crack defensive sides. It was the same before he coached the Wallabies: with Warringah, NSW, and the Brumbies. Until now.
No wonder “Macca” is tearing his hair out. His Melbourne Rebels have rebelled against tackling. They are like traffic cops at an intersection, waving the opposition through to the try-line.
Chief offender has been England import Danny Cipriani, leading the entire Super 15 missed tackle count with 38, aided and abetted by Julian Huxley (32), Cooper Vuna (31),and Nick Phipps (30).
That begs the question: where is the pride in the new franchise?
The lack of defence isn’t Macqueen’s fault. Far from it. He’s not missing the tackles; the players are entirely to blame.
After 11 games, the Rebels have coughed up 50 tries, by far the worst record of the 15 Super Rugby sides.
The second worst offenders are the Lions and Cheetahs, with 34, followed by the Force and Hurricanes on 31. But all four are way out of the Rebel league.
To magnify the problem, the Rebels have only scored 22 tries for a deficit of 28. The Force are next in line, with a deficit of 17: 14 to 31.
These stats are of genuine concern to Wallaby coach Robbie Deans. Defence lapses at Super Rugby level translate to the Men in Gold. It’s habit-forming.
There are other telling stats to deepen the frown to the Deans brow.
The Brumbies have a 90 point overall scoring deficit (217 points for, 307 against), the Force 84 (223-307), and the Rebels a whopping 177 deficit, again the worst with 206 for and 383 against.
That leaves the Brumbies, Force, and Rebels, in 12th, 13th, and 14th place on the ladder, heading into the business end of the tournament, with only the Lions behind them.
Although the Brumbies have a game in hand.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. There are pleasing stats:
* The Force’s James O’Connor leads the overall Super 15 point-scorers with 156, with three more Australians in the top seven – Quade Cooper second with 144, Matt Giteau fourth with 122, and Kurtley Beale seventh on 110.
* O’Connor also leads the successful penalty goal shooters with 43, Cooper’s third with 28, Giteau fifth with 26, and Beale eighth on 21.
* And the Reds, and Waratahs, are well to the fore. The Reds enjoy a plus 110 points difference, bettered only by the Crusaders 157, while the Waratahs are plus 80, in fourth.
The most staggering stats belong to the Stormers and the Cheetahs.
The Stormers have only scored 17 tries and let in just eight in 10 games, but are the leading franchise in the South African Conference, and third on the overall table, with 43 points.
While the Cheetahs have posted the most bonus points, with nine, even though they have lost eight of their 11 games.
Those stats make interesting reading, but there’s a lot more in store.
Let’s buckle up for tonight’s top of the table clash between the front-running Auckland Blues and the second-placed Queensland Reds at Suncorp.
This promises to be a cracker. There’s not a struck match between them, demanding a crowd in excess of 40,000 at the best rugby venue in the nation.
The Blues will look to their indestructible warrior-hooker-captain Keven Mealamu, All Blacks’ locks Ali Williams and Anthony Boric, in-form centre Luke McAlister, and the two wing flyers, Joe Rococoko and Rene Ranger.
The Reds’ key to success lie with locks James Horwill (captain) and Rob Simmons, flanker Beau Robinson, halves Will Genia and Quade Cooper, and centre Digby Ioane.
No doubt the superstitious fans of both franchises will blame the combination of the 13th week of the tournament, and Friday the 13th, for a loss.
Reds to win by 13?
Concerned
Guest
The Buck stops with McQueen. If they can't tackle they should be dropped and given inetensive tackling practice. Not to return until they can tackle. Put in people who can and will tackle. Then look at attack. Huxley, Vuna, Cipriani, McDonnel all cannot tackle. Pyle plays on the wing and does not do the work on a forward. Delve has a low work rate. Kingi is very ordinary in defence as is Phipps. Time to get real.
ChrisT
Guest
Doug, it’s no more a personal attack than columnists like David make regularly on the subject of some of their articles and to be honest mate, it’s exactly the robust sort of conversation I’d rather have down the pub. Your point about ‘interesting’ articles is well made – just that I find ‘valid’ an important component of ‘interesting’. Also not sure the world would be better served if we all only read articles or columnists we agreed with, do you? David of Canberra, maybe you hadn’t noticed but this is a forum where people regularly sound off, both columnists and readers of those columns.
jeznez
Guest
was the Blues and looked pretty bad to me. If you are going to come out of the line you better get the man and stop the ball, he was leaving holes for his team mates to cover as he came out and then didn't stop the ball. Much better to stay in the line than go up alone and miss.
Doug
Guest
ChrisT why not leave out the personal attack on David. If you dont like the conclusions he makes, argue against it. Its an opp ed column not a rigorously research doctoral dissertation. As far as I can tell part of his job is to write articles that are interesting talking point about sport. And thats what he does most days. If you dont like them dont read them. I am not asking you to agree with him just show him the same politeness you would if you down at the pub having a beer with him.
Doug
Guest
I agree there seems to be a certain amount of scape-goating towards him probably because of off field issues. There are other players that need a bit of a talking to about their defence. I must admit I was swayed in my "not so reliable" comment by the coming out of the line thing when I saw it on the weekly round up show plus the missed tackle count stats that have been bandied around. There were a couple of tackles he didnt finish in the Highlanders game but there were other there players too. However I have seen a fair bit of enthusiasm dashing out to help the man outside him. Maybe thats what the problem is trying to do to much - hoist the team up on his shoulders. Every knows he is a quality player he doesn't have to prove it every second of the game. He needs to be part of the team and play to the game plan unless there's a great point scoring opp like that crossfield kick to Kingi. Anyway I wish he would sort out the off field BS and bad relationship with the "team" and stick around next year. The guy wants to play for England and as far as I can see his best chance is knuckling down and working with Macqueen. Which is hopefully convince Martin Johnson that Cipriani can be relied on and isnt a flake. Or being 5/8 for next years Super 15 winners the Rebels!! (I can hope :-)). Then again maybe its better for Australia if Cipriani heads off for the south of France for an early retirement with more accommodating coaches... ;-)
Ben S
Roar Guru
'The lack of defence isn’t Macqueen’s fault. Far from it. He’s not missing the tackles; the players are entirely to blame.' Macqueen is in charge of the defence coach, so....
Ben S
Roar Guru
'Robbie Deans’ best year in three was 2010 for quality victories – beat Wales, and Ireland, away – ended a 47-year drought on the high veldt by beating the Boks 41-39, only the second Wallaby win in 77 years at Bloemfontein – ended a 10-match losing streak to the All Blacks in Hong Kong 26-24, and flogged reigning Six-Nations champions France 59-16 at the Stade de France.' Hmmm... I think this has already been debated before. The above is, as Chris T says, particularly weak. If beating NZ is an indication of progress then 2010 can't be that good a year because they beat NZ by 14 odd points in 2008... The home win (and NOT away) over Ireland was nothing to write home about, and against Wales the forwards got annihilated and Pocock was marked out of the game. You also forgot to mention the home loss to England and the flogging at Twickenham. The game against Italy was hardly epic stuff either. Combine such lazy and loose work with such a self-righteous attitude and we have a real turn-off.
Muzza
Guest
Vague but well said.
Jerry
Guest
Ireland, I imagine.
IronAwe
Guest
Well that could arguably be explained by Saffy having grown up playing union.
jameswm
Guest
I've watched some games and been very worried by Phipps' defence. I've noticed him missing a stack of tackles. Not saying he's not promising though. He has a beautiful long pass and is quick. Defence has improved.
Chris of Vic
Roar Pro
Agreed!
thurl
Guest
David you are wrong. Where are the players aquiring these basic skills? From the coach of course. If he is not coaching the basics or not coaching them correctly, then it is his fault. I know he isn' the one to make the tackle but he sets and coaches the defensive strategies. have you wondered why some S15 teams display wonderful skills of running, catching, passing and tackling while others don't? Its the coaches who don't assume that because the player is at this level he knows this stuff. Practice makes perfect. I recall Robbie deans early in the Wallaby job exasperate about the lack of basic skills among Australian players
Who Needs Melon
Guest
I agree. Get rid of the 'mark' rule and all you would see every match is endless bombs. Or should I say even MORE endless bombs.
Moaman
Guest
Excuse my tardy reply-have been away. My point exactly was this; You can bandy stats about as much as you like-and we all know by now that stats can been interpreted in many different ways to support or undermine a particular argument.Hence my liberal juggling of your 'stats'. It should be no surprise that australians are amongst the leading points-scorers and their respective teams should have run up large totals when they are playing so many matches in the weakest Conference! How that could be deemed "pleasing" I will leave for you to ponder.
vaguely
Roar Pro
Maybe Phipps misses so many because he attempts more than the rest. A percentage of tackles missed vs tackles attempted would be a more informative stat.
vaguely
Roar Pro
Another excuse for Macqueen is that the player market was slim pickings for this year because of the world cup. This is why they went with someone like Cipriani. Even though he was a risk to everything the Rebels were trying to build ala culture, because he was probably the most talented player on the market at the time. With every man and his dog coming off contract, the Rebels should be able to buy a higher quality roster. They have bought Beale and are chasing O'Connor, which I think are two great players to have but the worrying sign is that I haven't heard anything about them chasing big name forwards, who can help get them over the advantage line. And that would be a real Macqueen failing.
vaguely
Roar Pro
One of the biggest complaints you hear the leaguies complaining about is the amount of tries scored off kicks. It would seem that League complains about a lack of running rugby as much as Union does. I believe that if League adopted Union's mark rule than this would alieviate this problem. The only issue being unintended consequences... but that's a more long winded discussion.
vaguely
Roar Pro
If David had come out with some crap like the 'Dickinson' one I could understand the harsh comment, but this article wasn't that bad. The point of the article seems to be 'Hmm, here are some interesting stats', which seems to be the way David writes for the Roar. Not well polished articles, more along the lines of the thinking you would go through to write the proper article. The point of the roar is more about the comments than the actual story, the story is only there to get the crowd started. And because this is the Roar and not something like News Ltd, Fairfax, ABC, etc the comments are worth reading.
Chris of Vic
Roar Pro
The most interesting stat David presented (to me as a Rebels supporter) is that Phipps misses so many tackles. I have caught most of their games and he always seem to me to be very strong, and I' ve rarely seen him miss. His tackling has in fact put me in the mind of a young George Gregan, seems to take down big guys several pick and drives in a row and then appears in attack very quickly. I wonder if some of those tackles have occurred once the line has been breached outside him - that would be an interesting stat. On Huxley, I haven't liked him at inside centre at all, he seems fall off tackles too easily. I would like to see the centre pairing of Mortlock/Gerrard persisted with and the Rebels try and recruit another genuine centre. If O'Connor goes to the Reds maybe A. Fainnga or could be lured away or maybe Will Chambers could come back to Melbourne, he's finding it hard to get a run at the moment.