IRB top 10 tighter than ever before

The great joy of sport comes from tales of redemption and the Wallabies experienced an absolution of sorts against England last Saturday at Twickenham.

The previous week I called upon them to win the contact, and to put bodies in motion to win the deception. They did both in spades. Several players who had ordinary matches the week before put in 80 minute standouts against the English.

The easy thing to do would have been to jump on the congratulatory bandwagon and forget my comments of the previous week, but that would have been too easy, and unfair on the Wallabies, so I thought about this for a couple of days before putting pen to paper.

The conclusion I came to was this – rugby followers, me included, actually need to recalibrate our expectations, because the margin between the top teams has narrowed enormously.

No longer can we leap to righteous triumphalism after each win and then sniffy dismissal after every loss. The margins are just too small for that kind of clear-cut judgement.

The 2007 Rugby World Cup was the tipping point. This was the third Rugby World Cup to follow a period of professionalism, and the third to feature 20 teams in the finals series, which meant that for the preceding decade, 20 teams worldwide had been effectively practising hard-core professional rugby.

Of course, there were several surprising results.

France beat New Zealand in the quarter-finals. Fiji had South Africa on the rack for 70 minutes of their quarter-final. Ireland finished out of the running, third in their pool behind Argentina, who eventually beat France easily in the third versus fourth playoff.

An unlikely England team almost went all the way, despite being walloped 36-0 in their pool match by their eventual final opponents South Africa.

For the first time, teams like Argentina, Fiji and Italy were counted as genuine contenders for quarter-finals and beyond, and teams like Wales and Ireland found that their jobs had just got tougher.

In 2011 at the Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, the pool of contenders widened. In fact, if you were to remove all the results involving New Zealand (who predictably crushed several lesser opponents) and perhaps Fiji and Russia (who limped to some flaccid defeats), the pool rounds were very close.

A brave Japan scored 21 points against France. Tonga, amazingly, beat France, who then went on to make the final and lose to New Zealand by just one point. England beat Argentina by just four points. Scotland beat lowly Georgia by just nine. England only shaded Scotland by four.

The USA held Ireland to a narrowish 22-10 win, before Ireland beat Australia. Australia conceded 22 points to Russia. Samoa made South Africa work hard for their 13-5 win and Wales overcame their Samoa/Rugby World Cup hoodoo by beating the islanders by one try, 17-10.

An off day between 1995 and 2007 usually still meant a win, just by a narrower margin. An off day post-2007 often means a loss. There’s no such thing as a gimme game.

Australians (myself included) have worked ourselves up into a lather over recent losses, particularly those to Scotland and Samoa. Of course, the Australians were average in those matches, but the difference is that 10 years ago, the Wallabies’ structure and superior fitness would have still got them home.

These days, that is just not the case. Sure, Scotland have no backs. It’s a popgun attack if ever there was one. But their defence is consistently good, which is a sure sign of fitness, and the defensive structure is there.

The same with Samoa. 10 years ago, you could bank on Islander teams running out of gas at the 50 minute mark, whereupon you’d load up 30 points. These days it doesn’t happen, and they have attacking structure to go with their bulldozer frames.

The new world order has erupted and the reality is, there are no easy games. For years players have been using that line as a way of giving respect to opponents who were clearly worse than them. Perhaps that’s why we don’t listen to it – but the fact is, these days, they’re actually right. There are no easy games.

Because the margins between teams ranked two through to 10 is so small (New Zealand are on their own at #1), an off day can mean a loss of the type that used to be embarrassing.

Samoa? Scotland? Ireland? We should expect to beat these teams with ease, but these days, unless we’re on top of our game, we won’t only not beat them, we’ll lose.

Our expectations fashioned through World Cup wins in 1991 and 1999 are just no longer realistic.

This is compounded by the fact that Australian teams have rarely had a culture of physicality, unlike our southern neighbours South Africa and New Zealand, and our biggest northern foe, England.

So when we have an off day, it invariably means we’re lightweight in the scrum or at the ruck. In the days when the defensive lines were more fragmented, we’d get away with it, but no longer.

Am I excusing the Wallabies for their inconsistencies? No, but the reality is that today, even small inconsistencies get made to look big. From here on we will need to work harder than ever to keep a top three ranking, whereas 10 years ago, anything less than top three was a disgrace.

Viewed through this lens, the Wallaby win against England was an important one, as long as they truly absorb the lessons within, rather than just breathe a sigh of relief and move on.

Lesson one – the days of slipping a win past a team without winning the collision and the physical contest at the scrum are over. To the Wallabies’ credit, they dominated England in this space, but must realise that every time they choose to lighten up here against any of the IRB top 10, they face defeat.

Lesson two – the days of feeding off the individual deception of players like Matt Giteau, Quade Cooper and Will Genia are also over. Against England, the Wallabies finally started to work off the ball and help in creating the deception, rather than wait for it to happen. They can be even better, but it was typically Australian rugby.

Lesson three – their supporters will always be there through thick and thin, as long as they don’t shirk the first two lessons. A Wallaby team which puts its body on the line, and plays with enterprise, will always have the fans at its back.

Finally, I must give credit where credit is due to the ARU. Last week I called for the national body to listen to the fans and protect the Wallaby tradition, and in the case of Quade Cooper, they’ve made a strong call that no one is bigger than the jersey.

What a difference a week makes.