Wallabies win, but so many unanswered questions remain

I’ve been through the full gamut of emotions since the Wallabies’ chalked up their last-ditch win over South Africa in Perth on Saturday night, and I’ve probably re-written this column in my head three or four times before finally committing to the keyboard.

I feel relief and frustration at the result and how they got there. I feel anger and bewilderment about the skills and decision-making on show.

I feel sorrow and pity for Bryan Habana, that such a wonderful player should fall victim to such a dumfounding refereeing decision in his milestone Test. I then feel respect for the way Jean de Villiers and Heyneke Meyer bit the collective South African tongue post-match.

And then, if I’m honest, I feel complete bemusement at the extremes reached in post-mortem opinions in the days since. If I hadn’t been involved in The Roar for as long as I have, I’d be astounded how so many people could all watch the same game and reach such conflicting conclusions.

Nick Phipps either put the Wallabies’ backs on the front foot with his service, or he couldn’t hit a barn door with a frozen pea. Rob Simmons was either a complete liability, or an underrated and unappreciated cornerstone of the set piece.

Matt Toomua is either the midfield general the Wallabies can build around, or he’s holding the side back. Wycliff Palu either did plenty, or did nothing. Kurtley Beale either turned the game himself, or only looked so dangerous because of the aforementioned dumfounding refereeing.

As is often the case in emotional reactions, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle of all the statements above.

The locks
A couple of weeks ago, I asked if the Wallabies were getting the right balance of scrum stability, lineout presence, and general play workrate out of the Simmons-Sam Carter combination, and it’s but one question that remains after the win in Perth.

There’s been many a call for the head of either Carter or Simmons, but not both, and that suggests two things to me. It’s far from clear which of the two is under-performing (if, indeed, either of them are), and that lock is yet another position with few genuine alternatives on the ground.

The numbers from Saturday night for Carter and Simmons read as follows. Three and five runs (for 5 and 22 metres) respectively, a clean break each, while Simmons beat a defender and got an offload away. They made five and six tackles respectively, with Simmons missing two in addition. Carter took two lineout throws, while ESPNscrum has Simmons taking none. Carter gave away one penalty, and Simmons four.

Their numbers actually compare pretty well against their opposites, Eben Etzebeth and Victor Matfield, right up until you look at the lineouts column. Then you quickly realise how much the Springboks dominated this aspect.

Australia’s locks took two lineouts between them and didn’t steal one on the opposition throw. The South African locks took eleven lineouts between them, and pinched two more off Wallabies’ throws.

And this is where Simmons probably becomes the man in the firing line. It’s not a great look if the player running the lineout cannot complete one catch for night.

So does Simmons hold his spot for Argentina? Could James Horwill do the job competently enough, and did he do enough himself to earn a recall to the starting side?

And if Simmons made way, would Carter go too? As I mentioned above, I don’t think the locking stocks are that flush that we can change both.

Backrow
As sure as night follows day, Wycliff Palu’s head was being lined up for the chopping block post-match. ‘Goes missing too often against top opposition’, they said.

‘Never plays for Australia as well as he plays for the Waratahs’, they said.

Ironically, his head actually provides an answer here, in the short term at least. News emerged yesterday that a concussion he sustained in the Springboks match will keep him out of the Pumas match now, and with concussion protocols being followed before he returns.

Which means that almost certainly, Scott Higginbotham will come in for the match on the Gold Coast. And this is probably a deserved call-up anyway. Higginbotham has had a significant impact from the bench in the last two games, and I think he deserved the chance to provide that same impact from the start.

However, as I also mentioned a fortnight ago, playing Higginbotham and Hooper in the same backrow means that more than ever an in-tight, over-the-ball presence is needed and in the current Wallabies squad, only Matt Hodgson fits that bill.

Hodgson played well in his ten minutes replacing Scott Fardy, and so if Higginbotham and Horwill have done enough to earn a start, then by the same measure – and necessity – Hodgson has to come in for Fardy.

What does that do to the lineout? Well, Hodgson’s one lineout take in ten minutes was more than Fardy managed for the seventy minutes previous.

The Kurtley Beale question
…is actually the one I find easiest to answer – leave him right where he is.

Two of my senior and highly respected colleagues, Spiro Zavos and David Lord, have suggested and outright demanded Beale replace Matt Toomua at inside centre, but I could not disagree with them more.

The way modern rugby is being played now, and with defences as organised and as strong as they are from the start of matches, the time for Beale to come on and have the kind of effect he had in Perth is late in the game. There might be an argument that Ewen McKenzie could and even should have brought Beale on earlier, but that’s very easy to say with no way of possibly verifying it.

Beale was able to have the impact he did because the game was in the balance as it was. With the Wallabies on attack after Bernard Foley brought the margin back to within a converted try, South Africa were guilty of over-defending at times. The opportunities that presented were equally of defensive anxiety, than they were of the creation of attacking X-factor.

And that’s entirely the point of a player like Beale coming off the bench. To take advantage of situations exactly like that, in exactly those times of the match; situations that just don’t exist from kickoff.

No-one likes being labelled a bench player, and I get that. But Beale’s greatest benefit to the Wallabies in this current alignment is providing that late-game spark he does from the bench.