Reason for optimism after Argentina win?

The Wallabies’ conundrum regarding optimism and reality was summed up very nicely by Walt Disney.

He once famously said: “I always like to look on the optimistic side of life but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.”

A win against Argentina was a good result for the Wallabies, but whether the result should lead to optimism is complicated by the realities that it was a narrow one point victory against the tenth ranked nation in the world and that the atrocious weather the match was played in makes it very hard to get an accurate read as to how much improvement there was from the Wallabies.

I certainly saw some improvement but having seen the level the All Blacks and Springboks played at in their match, I’m realistic enough to know a return clash with the Springboks in two weeks will be another matter altogether.

The Wallabies defence improved and I only recorded one instance in the match where the Wallabies were as slow as they’ve been in their last few matches to re-align and match numbers.

That instance occurred when Nick Cummins found himself on the end of three Wallabies facing seven Pumas but fortunately the Pumas didn’t take advantage of the opportunity.

The organisation in defence was better but the biggest improvement was the urgency of players to get into position.

The Wallabies lineout continued to perform well. Stephen Moore was outstanding with his throwing despite the weather conditions, hitting his target with 12 of 13 throws.

Ben Mowen has really improved the Wallabies lineout this year, with 14 of his 16 calls being effective in the match.

There were also some signs of improvements in the effectiveness of the forwards in attack, with additional numbers committed to attacking rucks helping to secure the Wallabies’ ball and some examples of forwards in motion so that they were hitting the ball at pace.

Of course there were still too many times when the forwards were static when receiving the ball.

As you’ll see in my video analysis tomorrow, the combination of forwards receiving the ball with some momentum and additional numbers committed to the ruck helped to generate faster, cleaner ball for Nic White at the base of the ruck and he made a solid starting debut.

The rest of the backline also performed solidly but the weather conditions meant we were never going to see much ball getting out to the backs or have much to judge them on.

I’ll be surprised if White doesn’t start again against the Springboks in two weeks.

His performance has generated some optimism, particularly with his kicking game, but let’s not gets carried away as he will need to do better in future matches.

The good things he did need to be balanced against his errors so that blind optimism doesn’t get ahead of reality.

He put two kicks out on the full, was charged down once and made a real mess of one chip kick. He also threw the forward pass to Mowen in the second minute of the match with the Wallabies in good attacking position and didn’t move forward to take a high ball in the second half that was clearly his.

Those errors resulted in the Wallabies losing possession on five occasions and he also infringed with two scrum feeds.

I raise those errors not to be controversial and say he played poorly but to point out where he needs to improve for the next match.

Sitaleki Timani was very physical when he came on and the Wallabies need to pair him with James Horwill as their starting locks against the Springboks, provided Horwill is fit.

Sekope Kepu also made a good impact around the field when he came on.

The area where I saw no reason for optimism was, again, the scrum.

The Wallabies won five of the nine scrums on their feed, or 56%, while the Pumas won 100% of their six feeds.

Of the four losses by the Wallabies on their own feed, two were a result of a crooked feed and one was for an early set.

In the one scrum where there was a genuine win against the feed, Moore cleanly hooked the ball back on to the Wallabies side but it was then kicked forward on to the Pumas side by one of the Wallabies.

In addition to looking at the outcome of the scrums as recorded by the statistics, we should look at how the results came about.

The first point to deal with is the Wallaby tactics.

Last week the Wallabies tried the tactic on their own feed of Mowen changing position in the scrum from between the two locks to between the loosehead lock and flanker on the left side of the scrum.

It was a poorly thought out tactic as it gave the Springboks an even greater numerical advantage just as Moore was trying to strike for the ball.

Fortunately the Wallabies abandoned that tactic this week.

The tactical change this week was to move Rob Simmons to tighthead lock.

Simmons isn’t a specialist loosehead lock and really isn’t suited to the tighthead role. It’s the same as a prop that plays the majority of the season in Super Rugby on one side of the scrum but then plays on the other side for the Wallabies.

I’ve seen comments that part of the answer to the Wallabies scrummaging issues is bringing Timani in as the tighthead lock, demonstrated by how well the Wallabies performed in the last scrum of the match when Timani was pushing behind Kepu.

Let me start on that topic by saying I agree Timani should start at tighthead lock in the next match. However, that last scrum of the match was actually the fourth scrum with Timani on the field – one behind Alexander and three behind Kepu.

In three of those scrums the tighthead side of the scrum was crushed, so one good scrum doesn’t show anything was fixed and nor does the introduction of one player.

At least Timani offers some hope – he starts off with his shoulder in a better position than any of the other locks the Wallabies have used this year and down low.

The contrast in starting positions between he and Simmons before the set shown in the image below demonstrates how little the members of the pack are working together when they don’t even start in the same position.

Timani is down on one knee with his shoulder under Alexander in a good position while Simmons is up on his feet and too high. This happened in each of the scrums they packed together – how they setup should not be an individual preference.

Timani Simmons Scrum Setup

However, as the bind is called, Timani comes up off his knee into a position which, although slightly lower than Simmons, is still too high.

As the scrum sets, Timani lowers his backside again but his shoulder position moves so he’s no longer underneath the roll.

This is a result of a poor bind with his prop, a bind that is far more important than the bind between the locks. If he addressed these two issues he would be a very effective tighthead lock in the scrums.

As I pointed out last week, all of the other Wallaby locks are making the same mistakes so this isn’t just a criticism of Timani.

I wrote earlier of the conundrum between optimism and reality. The Wallabies obviously don’t want to talk negatively about their scrummaging woes, but are they genuinely acknowledging the problems they have?

In one of his post-match interviews, Mowen said, “we had a couple of good early penalties from a dominant scrum and that’s a statement from where we were last week. You’ve got to give credit to the front row – they’ve worked hard on that and they got a reward.”

Now I know this was an interview not long after Mowen had left the field but where were these penalties and where was this dominant scrum?

The Wallabies were correctly awarded one penalty for a scrum in the 16th minute, when the Pumas’ loosehead prop got his feet too far back and collapsed.

It’s hard to see how a dominant Wallabies scrum caused that, as the Pumas’ scrum was under no real pressure at the time.

In the 14 scrums decided in the match the Wallabies went backwards in nine, or 64%. They achieved parity in four and were slightly on top in one.

When I say backwards, I mean they were shunted backwards significantly on at least one side of the scrum, not edged backwards a little.

They did only go backwards in three of seven scrums decided in the first half, or 43%, compared to 86% in the second half, so it’s fair to say they started out better than they finished.

On their own feed the Wallabies went backwards in 50% of scrums and on the Pumas’ feed they went backwards in 83%.

That’s right – despite the fact the team not feeding the ball does have some advantage under the new scrum laws, the Wallabies did better in this match when feeding the ball than when the Pumas were feeding the ball.

The Pumas had no issue in dealing with the advantage the Wallabies should have had when the Pumas were feeding the ball because they were clearly the dominant scrum and got the reward they deserved at scrum time.

Muhammad Ali once said, “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.”

It’s easy to make such a bold statement when you are as good as he was.

Behind closed doors I hope the Wallabies are acknowledging their scrum didn’t improve this week, because no amount of pretending it did is going to fix the problems.