Lack of game plans hurting the Wallabies

The Wallabies need a more prescriptive and structured game plan because we simply don’t have the team for the Deans ‘play what’s in front of you’ approach.

Enough with trying to coach better decision makers Robbie, and make some decisions yourself.

Deans’ primary failing is his refusal to acknowledge what’s lacking from Australian rugby and adapt accordingly.

We’re never going to be the Robbie Deans era Crusaders – at least with the current crew on deck – but the man doesn’t seem to want to let it go.

We need to optimise what we have, not cling to the dream of an unstoppable Wallaby juggernaut.

I’ve covered this topic before on The Roar but the France debacle warrants a revisiting.

Unlike some people, I don’t think our players are bereft of desire, competitiveness or some kind of mythical fire in belly. Coming up against the All Blacks three times a year ensures the Wallabies have plenty of desire to win.

Our boys don’t play with their country’s sanity resting on their shoulders or, for that matter, a long queue of more than adequate replacements champing on the bit for a shot at the national team..

And on the raw skill and talent front, the picture is similar. With our strongest 15 on the park, player for player, we’re better than our record suggests. Perhaps not world number one material, but we can certainly beat the best on our day.

Our hurdles seem more related to temperament and playing intelligence.

These challenges don’t make us a bad team, they just necessitate a different coaching style.

The issue is particularly pressing in the number 10 spot.

We’ve got no shortage of world class artistry in the playmaking department, but perhaps it’s slightly misleading to talk of such things in the absence of true intelligence and temperament.

It’s a bit like saying: ‘so and so would be a top Test batsman if he had a better temperament.’ No, to be a good Test batsman is to have a good temperament by definition, and the same goes for the fly-half position.

Robbie Deans needs to take more charge of the game from the coaching box, both before and during matches. Berrick Barnes, Quade Cooper, Kurtley Beale do not have what it takes to be a ‘play what’s in front of you’ playmaker.

James O’Connor is a potential exception for the future. Key word: future.

Quade Cooper whinged that Deans didn’t give him the flashy game plan he wanted at the Wallabies. I suspect this was because he was expected to come up with the ideas himself. His criticism of Deans was actually a criticism of himself.

On the other hand, Ewen Mckenzie, understanding the nature of the man in his midst, sent Cooper out on the field with clear and prescricptive game plans.

I’ll never cease to be impressed by the divergence in the Queensland Reds gameplan from week to week against different opponents; tactics that usually hinged on Quade Cooper. Surely no one thinks the brainchild was the boy himself?

When I speak of intelligence, I guess I’m also talking about instinct.

Aside from number 10, we lack it in another crucial area of the modern game: the back row. I’m particularly talking about the 6 and 8 positions. So I’ll leave David Pocock (and Michael Hooper) out of this conversation.

Kieren Read is almost godlike in his ability to be in the right place at the right time, and thus trememdously impact a game of rugby.

He is one of the latest breed of hard running, highly skilled backrowers in world rugby who demonstrate – if ever there was any doubt – the immense importance of forwards who can link with the backline and get the ball going forward.

Crucially, this needs to happen through multiple phases. This kind of play has been sorely missing from the Wallabies of late.

Not only does Read not need a hell of a lot of instructions before a match, you probably wouldn’t want to give him any, such is the power of his rugby brain.

We shouldn’t hope to turn any of our current blokes into this type of player, but that doesn’t mean world class performers can’t be coached out of the guys we have.

I would like to see more structured use of our backrowers in a running capacity off multi-phase ball. At the moment we seem to run one set play and then hope the boys can conjure up something special from the recycle.

What results is slow and often poorly executed. Any advantage of an unstructured approach is lost anyway.

Instead we should plan out our attack to a higher degree. Yes, this approach will telegraph our intentions, but, a perfectly executed play of this nature will be better than our current pedestrian efforts.

Good coaches can also be creative, as can skillful playmakers, which we have.

A whole other conversation remains about our centres, which this article won’t go into. Suffice to say that with more success in the number 10 and running backrow areas, more opportunities would open up in the midfield.

What we need to see ahead of the Lions tour next year is some planning. Even if our boys lose sticking to a game plan, let’s try having a clear cut one, with some structure to it.

And if the game plan is not working, let’s have another one up our sleeve, which the coach can implement from the sidelines during the course of a match, or at half time.

When was the last time Wallabies changed tactical gears noticeably during a match? Compare this with the All Blacks, who do it so often it’s scary – think Brisbane 2011 (the Samo run away try game).

We have the cattle to implement a comprehensive game plan, and the ability to change it mid-match.

The coach should stop leaving so much up to players who don’t have the acumen to make the right decisions for themselves.