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One of the most exciting players in Wallabies history is urging Robbie Deans to shelve his “un-Australian” game plan and “let Quade Cooper off the leash” in Sunday’s Rugby World Cup semi-final.
Russell Fairfax, widely considered among Australia’s greatest attacking fullbacks, insists the Wallabies will have no hope of beating the All Blacks with the same conservative approach adopted in last weekend’s 11-9 quarter-final Houdini act against South Africa.
“Australia must chance their arm. They have to have a crack,” Fairfax told AAP.
“They have to change that game plan. I’m only an avid fan, but that game plan was foreign to the way Australians play their football.”
Fairfax noted that statistically the Wallabies forwards were never able to command even 50 per cent of possession against New Zealand and South Africa and that would not change at Eden Park.
“The Australian tradition is about backs surviving on less,” he said. “So we’ll only have certain amounts of the time that we’ll get the pill.
“New Zealand will control all that so we’ll be at their mercy, so we have to take our opportunities and we can’t wait for the crack to be a gaping hole.
“That’s why Deans has to let Quade Cooper off the leash.
“The only way we can win is if Quade has a decent game, but he needs to be allowed to play his own game.
“You only have so many X-factors in your team and he’s one of them, so the team has to learn to play around him – not the other way around.”
Fairfax said if dynamic fullback Kurtley Beale was ruled out, that would only add to the pressure on Cooper to deliver.
“Beale was rated as one of the top five players in international rugby this year and, if you lose that in your team, you’re not the same team,” he said.
“You can’t expect anyone to replicate what Beale does, so the Wallabies can’t expect the same penetration from the back.
“But you don’t know with Deans because he’s a very conservative kind of guy.
“I reckon the game he had Quade Cooper playing against South Africa was detrimental to the Australian team.
“It’s not the way Australians play. You can’t change nearly a century of history.
“It might be in the psyche of teams in New Zealand to stop attacking, but it’s not in the Australian psyche.
“Telling Quade Cooper to stop running the ball, fair dinkum, it’s like telling David Campese to stop scoring tries. You just can’t do it.
“Why would you stop him from doing the things that only he can do?
“They never told Mark Ella to pull back his skills, they never told David Campese to pull back his skills and they’re two of Australia’s greatest attacking backs we’ve ever had.”
To be fair, Deans on Friday said Cooper would be allowed “off the leash”, providing the Wallabies found the right balance, kicked better than they did against the Springboks and made wiser decisions in attack.
Fairfax, though, suspects Deans’ conservatism may stem from the New Zealand coach not wanting to follow Ewen McKenzie’s successful tactics he used with Cooper and company during Queensland’s triumphant Super Rugby campaign.
“Robbie Deans doesn’t want to copy Ewen McKenzie. He has an ego that won’t allow him to copy what he has done,” Fairfax said.
“He doesn’t want to be seen as copying someone when he’s the No.1 coach in the country.
“He wants to win the World Cup his way.
“But Ewen has shown the blueprint but he doesn’t want to follow Ewen’s blueprint.
“He’s got an ego and he wants to do it his way, especially here in New Zealand where he’s got a point to prove to those people who said: `we don’t want you. We want Graham Henry.’
“So I think he wants to rub their noses in it and good luck to him if he does. He’s earned the right to do that.”
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.