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The new Wallabies coaching staff, which went to work for the first time on Monday, faces a potential landmine in the first Test of the season against Scotland.
The Australia – Scotland Test will be played at Newcastle on Tuesday 4 June. Robbie Deans revealed to a maul of rugby writers at ARU headquarters yesterday that his Wallaby side would have the benefit of only one training run before the Test.
He laughed when I remarked “just like the good old days”. He responded by noting that “they’ll be having a two month preparation!”
Nick Scrivener, a former head coach of Edinburgh and Scotland A, becomes a new coaching assistant with a mandate on skills development. He opined that Scotland will be more difficult to defeat than their recent record might suggest.
“They’ve won a series in Argentina, which is hard to do. They have beaten the Wallabies in recent years and I was in the Scotland camp that day,” Scrivener said.
“They have a group of very promising youngsters who will want to make a mark on the tour.”
The reason for the back-to-the-past type of preparation for the Australia – Scotland match lies in the tight scheduling of the June Test season. This season has to be squeezed into less-than-a-month-long break in the 2012 Super Rugby tournament.
Super Rugby round one will be played on the weekend starting on Friday 1 June, with the Rebels – Brumbies contest in the Australian Conference and the Waratahs – Hurricanes on June 2.
The Reds and the Force have a bye. The players for the Test at Newcastle will mainly come from these two teams.
But Robbie Deans did tell us that it was not impossible that a player or players from the Waratahs might have to front up a couple of days after playing against the Hurricanes.
The new Wallabies coaching staff is made up of Robbie Deans, who says that the arrangement will take a lot of the trivial organisational work and allow him to “add substance”‘ (which he added “will be good for me”).
Tony McGahan, who was not present, will become the coaching co-ordinator. Deans said that he would also have a responsibility for defence.
McGahan has been in charge of Munster for the last four years. He has coached in Japan and was a head coach at Nudgee College (a great rugby nursery) and the Easts’ first-grade side.
In the sometimes-fevered discussion about the future of Deans and the next Wallaby coach, McGahan – who has head coach experience at several levels – has from time to time been mentioned as a candidate.
The former Wallaby prop Andrew Blades is the forwards coach, with a responsibility for re-starts. This is his second stint with the Wallabies.
Blades has long had a reputation as having a Ph.D in scrumming. He is forthright when he has to be.
When coach Eddie Jones started to blame him for some poor performances of the Wallabies, Blades resigned from the job.
The Wallabies continued on their downward plunge in performance, which rather proved the point that the problem was Jones, not Blades.
The fourth man in the new coaching set up is Nick Scrivener. ‘Scrive’, as Deans called him, was a foundation member of the Brumbies squad in 1996. He was part of the Brumbies coaching staff for 10 seasons.
At an announcement media conference like this one, it is understood that nothing very controversial is going to be said by the people fronting up.
The questions are generally the most interesting aspect of the event. So, in the interests of The Roar readers, I felt obliged to ask a couple of tricky ones.
“Does the new coaching staff reflect an inadequacy in the staff that was in place in the Rugby World Cup 2011 tournament?,’ I asked.
The real answer to this question should have been “Of course it does”.
The official answer was that this was “another time”.
The discarded coaches, like Jim Williams (now an indigenous development officer for the Waratahs) and Phil Blake (defence coach at the Western Force) have moved on.
“We’re happy where they took the group but this is a new group,” Deans added.
“Have you been happy with the actual play and the style of the various franchises?” I posed.
The real answer should have been “aside from the Brumbies, no”.
The official answer was that there has been contact but the franchises are autonomous.
“Will there be some new players in the Wallaby squad?”
Real answer: “Unless some of the senior Wallabies start playing much better than they have, there will have to be changes”.
Official answer: “Now that the coaching staff is on the job, they’ll be picking a XV every week. It will be inevitable that there should be some new faces”.
For those who take a note of these things, Deans seemed to be remarkably relaxed and enthusiastic about the prospects of the new Test season.
He did not give any indication of a coach under pressure to retain his job after the 2013 season. Or from the fact that the opening couple of Tests could be very difficult for the Wallabies.
After the unusual Tuesday Test against Scotland, with only a Sunday training run as preparation, the Wallabies then play a rampant Wales side, which are the toast of European rugby. This takes place only four days later, at Brisbane on 9 June.
Between travelling and so on, it might be possible to get in two training sessions for this Test.
Rob Howley, a fine halfback but inexperienced head coach, will be the Wales coach on their three-Test tour of Australia.
Warren Gatland fell off a ladder a month or so ago at his home in New Zealand and shattered his legs. He won’t be able to make the tour.
One shouldn’t trivialise serious injuries like this, but it is hard to avoid noting that for the Wallabies the Gatland injuries are something of a lucky break for them.