SPIRO's Lions Diary: The Wallabies are down one but not out

The first Test between Australia and the 2013 British and Irish Lions at Suncorp Stadium was rugby at its best. This was vintage and brutal Test match rugby.

Arguably the best Test in terms of the passion in the play (on and off the field) and the nail-biting finish  – that left the Lions’ anguished coach Warren Gatland with his head in his hands – since the Rugby World Cup final in 2003.

The game was full of collisions and smacking tackles. There was brilliant running from Israel Folau, Kurtley Beale, Will Genia, George North and Alex Cuthbert.

The Lions won a couple of dominant scrums but towards the end of the game the sheer guts and willpower of the Wallaby enabled them to win the last two crucial scrums.

The first of these scrums enabled the Wallabies to turn over the Lions ball, with minutes remaining on the clock, from in front of their goal posts.

The second scrum, near the half-way mark with time almost up and the Wallabies down 21 – 23, resulted in a penalty for the Wallabies.

Against all the odds and with shattered players off and still on the field, the Wallabies had a chance of pulling off what would have been one of Test rugby’s most remarkable wins.

Beale, who had made a couple of spectacular runs but missed an easy (in Test match terms) penalty kick only minutes earlier, came in confidently (too confidently?) for his last strike.

In the emotion of the moment I found it difficult to see immediately what had happened. And then came Greg Clarke’s shouted commentary: “He’s SLIIIPPED!”

A photo in The Sunday Telegraph shows Beale fractionally after he had kicked the ball. His right leg has come through well enough but he has turned on his left ankle and instead of the weight of his body going through the ball from his boot, he fell away.

The kick was accurate enough but without the oomph of a proper strike the ball wobbled and dipped like a shot pheasant and fell short of the crossbar.

Readers of The Roar and a number of Queensland-based rugby writers (no names, no pack drill Wayne) have been critical of what they have complained has been the negative game plan Robbie Deans is supposed to have imposed on the Wallabies.

But it was clear, right from the outset of the Test, even though one of the play-makers (and the designated goal kicker) Christian Lealiifano was stretchered out of the Test in the first play, that the Wallabies were going to play a ball in hand game.

Will Genia ran a tap penalty from deep Wallaby territory. A weaving, long run saw Genia finally kick-pass a grubbering, rolling ball into the capacious and soft hands of Folau and the new Wallaby star raced away for the first of his two brilliant tries.

And this intention to challenge the Lions by running at them was maintained right to the end of the Test, when the Wallabies had a backline of flotsam from the wreck of their injuries, but Genia and Beale continued to lead the charge out of defence with the ball in hand.

Unfortunately, Berrick Barnes lapsed back to his 2012 kicking mode and put up an inept bomb, which was seized by North, who raced away on one of the great runs in Lions history.

I would make a point here about Folau, who deservedly got great praise for his brilliant, try-scoring running and some of his catching.

It was noticeable to me, as it has been with his play for the Waratahs, that Folau does not chase or contest contestable high balls kicked by his own players in the way, say, Bryan Habana does.

North’s great moment was made much easier for him by the fact that there was no pressure from Folau on him from the Barnes bomb (or other bombs, for that matter).

Although Folau has made the transition from rugby league to rugby union brilliantly, I don’t think he really understands that a major difference between the two games is that rugby involves a continuous contest for possession (except in the rolling mauls, which is why I dislike them and want the experimental law variations rule of pulling down to allow a contest to be re-instated).

So when a teammate kicks a bomb, Folau is inclined to wait for the opposition to catch it and then tackle the catcher if he can. In league this makes sense, because the six-tackle rule comes into effect and there is a turn-over. In rugby the games goes on with the catchers breaking away, like North, or setting up another attack from a ruck.

I can’t recall a modern Test match when a team has lost its starting inside centre (Lealiifano), his replacement (Pat McCabe), the next possibility (Barnes) and then also had to replace the outside centre – Adam Ashley-Cooper, who played for 10 minutes with a shoulder injury – and finally a winger in Digby Ioane, who tried but finally could not struggle through the Test with what seemed to be a shoulder injury.

It is history now that Michael Hooper, who was dominating the rucks and mauls in the number 7 jersey, had to become an inside centre with about 30 minutes of play left. The Lions were smart enough to run their very first set piece backline movement after the shift down the James O’Connor/Hooper channel.

Cuthbert burst through a gap between O’Connor and Hooper (although Rod Kafer, who knows a lot about five-eighths’ play, reckoned it was O’Connor’s channel) to score the decisive try for the Lions.

I reckon O’Connor was not cynical enough to make more of the block he got from a side runner. He should have really fallen over rather than try unavailingly to reach Cuthbert. He was impeded. And by falling over, the television match official (TMO) would have had to bring the play back.

This gets us to the Wallaby starting line-up for next Saturday’s make or break Test (for the Wallabies) at Melbourne.

The pack performed well enough, without getting too much possession for the backs. The scrum came right in the end and possibly the pack selected for next week’s Test will reflect this.

There wasn’t success, though, in countering the Lions lineout, unlike the Brumbies.

It was announced on Sunday George Smith was the only addition to the pack numbers. Both Michael Hooper and Liam Gill played well but this suggests to me Smith might be a starter at number 8, or a reserve loose forward who can play in all three backrow position at the expense perhaps of Gill.

If there is more injury carnage on next Saturday among the backs, Smith is a more than useful centre, a position he sometimes played in at Manly and in Japan.

The selection of the backs is more problematical. Many of the backs Deans has had in camp for three weeks are now out of the series. He has hinted that Folau might play at fullback. If this is the case, then Beale could go to number 10 and O’Connor to inside centre or wing or fullback.

I don’t think this is likely, at least at the start of the Test.

Two new backs have been brought into the squad, Ben Tapuai, who can play inside and outside centre, and Jesse Mogg, who can play on the wing and at fullback, and also kicks goals.

Rob Horne will presumably come into the starting side. But will he play an inside centre or outside centre? And will Tapuai be a starter?

A certain Queensland scribe, who has supported Quade Cooper, suggested last week that Matt Toomua is the next number 10 off the cab rank. I agree with this call.

Certainly, Toomua looked the part for the Brumbies in their splendid win over the Lions. He has played for the Wallabies, even though he is still a young player.

Deans looks like sticking with James O’Connor as his number 10, and his main goal-kicker presumably, given Lealiifano is in doubt.

He and Beale will be kicking at a stadium with the roof cover at Etihad Stadium the field is not likely to be be slippery, although it does tear up when the packs get down into some serious scrumming on it.

For their part, the Lions will be thrilled about starting the series with a victory. They failed to do this in South Africa four years ago and then went on to be very competitive in the last two matches, the second lost in the last minute of play and the third won easily.

Despite the experience of 2001, the team that wins the first Test in the series has by way the easier journey towards a series victory. This has generally been the experience in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

The UK Daily Telegraph rugby writer Mick Cleary was critical of the New Zealand referee Chris Pollock, who he called “sanctimonious and useless in equal measure” for the way “he caned the Lions at the breakdown”.

I would say the adjectives really describe Cleary’s understanding of the breakdown laws.

It was clear from the beginning of the game the Lions wanted to get away with playing the ball on the ground at every ruck.

Brian O’Driscoll was the main offender. Was he chosen for this role because of his stature as a great player? But there he was, complaining about a penalty he had conceded while he was on the ground with the ball in his grasp!

I am doubtful, too, about the tactic of holding the ball in the scrums to force a penalty. The Lions won one penalty with this tactic and they conceded the last, almost fateful, penalty when they did this again and were crumpled up by the Wallaby scrum.

My understanding is that ‘use-it or lose-it’ applies to scrums as it does to ruck and mauls. You can legitimately force a penalty by holding the ball in the scrum if the opposition is forced to lift or it collapses. But if neither of these things happen, there should be a turn-over.

Craig Joubert is the referee at Melbourne and you’d like to think he’d warn the Lions about the consequences of using the scrum as a method of gaining penalties rather than (basically) as a way to re-start the game.

The Lions will be really pleased too with the wonderful play of Johnny Sexton, whose management of the backline was virtually perfect.

As Phil Kearns pointed out, Sexton did two chips over the defensive line and re-gained both of them. He also ran the game-changing set move for Cuthbert’s try to perfection.

Leigh Halfpenny’s dead-eyed goal-kicking was the difference between the two teams in the end. He missed one kick for three points but the Wallabies left 14 un-kicked points off the scoreboard, an outcome that actually prevented a comfortable win.

The issue is whether the Lions will now play better with the first Test now safely (perhaps not so safely) tucked away in their keeping. We will find out next Saturday. My guess is that they will.

And where to for the Wallabies? They will have to play better than they did at Brisbane, especially in the forwards getting consistent possession for the backs.

There is the precedent of 2001, when the Lions absolutely thrashed Rob Macqueen’s Wallabies. It is history now that, after being down at half-time in the next Test at Melbourne, the Wallabies stormed back (with Joe Roff leading the charge with a brilliant try from an errant Jonny Wilkinson pass) to win easily and then take out the series at Sydney in a tense finish.

The good news for Deans’ Wallabies is that they were much more competitive in their first Test against the Lions than Macqueen’s champions were. Can the 2013 Wallabies rise to greater deeds as their 2001 counterparts did?

It needs to be remembered, I suppose, that 2001 Wallaby side was one of the greatest (if not the greatest) rugby side Australia has ever produced. It is the only Australian side that has won two Tests in a series against the British Lions. The 1930 Wallabies won their single Test against the Lions.

Since 1899 the Wallabies and Lions have played eight series (including 1930). The Wallabies have won only two of these series. The teams have now played 21 Tests, with the Wallabies winning five and the Lions 16.

At Melbourne and Sydney, the Wallabies are confronting history and a rampant Lions side.

Henry Ford once declared, ‘history is bunk’. Here’s hoping he is right next Saturday night at Melbourne.