It's time for the Wallabies to win at Cape Town

So there was Chris Rattue in the NZ Herald praising the NRL for providing league fans with two last terrific finals game and bashing rugby yet again (how predictable!) for providing nothing in the ‘height of the season’ but ‘rubbish’ for its supporters.

You would expect even someone as one-eyed as Rattue to at least see that there is far more quality rugby in both New Zealand and Australia in the next two months than is encompassed in two NRL finals matches in Sydney.

There are ITM and NRC matches throughout New Zealand and Australia. Then in November there is a jamboree of rugby with the top nations in the northern and southern hemisphere playing each other throughout Europe.

The IRB Sevens tournaments are on, and in New Zealand the Kiwi’s are televising the New Zealand Schoolboys matches against Australia and Fiji.

And this weekend and next weekend, there are the final two rounds of the toughest international rugby tournament (outside of the World Cup) in the world, The Rugby Championship.

The Wallabies play the Springboks in South Africa. And the All Blacks play the Pumas in Argentina. The Springboks and the Pumas have played their home and away matches. The Wallabies and the All Blacks have played their two Tests. The Wallabies and the All Blacks have played the Springboks and the Pumas at home.

All these matches, with the exception of the All Blacks thrashing of the Wallabies at Auckland and then their defeat of the Pumas, were extremely close affairs. They were every bit as exciting as the NRL finals series.

For the Wallabies, all of their matches, with the exception of the thrashing by the All Blacks, were close run things. There was one point in it (thankfully the Wallabies way) against the Springboks at Perth.

The Pumas had a scrum feed near the Wallabies try line in the last minute of their close Test. Luckily for the Wallabies, the referee Glen Jackson gave a short-arm penalty against the dominant Pumas pack for an early shove. Phew!

Then in their best performance of the season the Wallabies held the All Blacks to a 12 – 12 draw in the rain at Sydney. In the final play of the match the Wallabies had a scrum feed 5m out and near the All Blacks posts.

They should have set for an easy field goal. Instead they ran the ball and Sam Cane forced a turnover penalty and the All Blacks were out of jail.

There has been a lot of criticism of the Wallabies in 2014. I have contributed somewhat to the noise, admittedly, but all us need to concede that at home, at least, the Wallabies have been world class.

They have defeated France in three consecutive Tests, forced a draw against the All Blacks thereby preventing that great side from completing a world record (for a top tier nation) 18 straight Test victories, won narrow victories against the Pumas and the Springboks.

Narrow perhaps but as the great Fred Allen used to say, ‘a win is a win, son.’

So let’s give the Wallabies credit for their strong home record in 2014.

The only away Test this season they have played was the disaster at Auckland. This Test needs to be corrected.

The best way for the Wallabies to do this is to defeat the Springboks at Cape Town, and then go on and do the same thing to the Pumas in Argentina.

The last time the Wallabies defeated the Springboks at Cape Town was in 1992. The law of averages suggests that the Springboks can’t sustain this record for much longer. Can they? The question is asked nervously because the All Blacks have maintained an even longer record of not losing to the Wallabies at Eden Park.

So let’s forget about hoodoos and history and look at the two teams.

The Wallabies have shown glimpses this season of becoming a formidable side. But for various reasons, some of them due to strange selections by coach Ewen McKenzie (why oh why play Kurtley Beale at number 10?), the side hasn’t clicked in a totally convincing 80 minute performance.

One other reason for this unsteadiness is that the set pieces tend to get worse as the Test progresses. I put a lot of this down to fitness – simply, the forwards are tiring too quickly. The lineouts are working at only 77 per cent success rate and the scrums at 76 per cent (Opta Facts information).

There have been technical issues with the scrum, too. But again, even against the best scrum in the tournament, the Pumas with their bajada system, the Wallabies held their own for long periods of time until their legs went in the last 20 minutes of play.

The Springboks have had their scrum issues against the Pumas, more so than the Wallabies, in fact. They seem to be wedded to playing without a flier in the forwards which could tell against them on a dry field, as it did in the quarter-final of the 2011 RWC.

The Springboks have struggled to win their home and away Tests against the Pumas. Both Tests should really have been won by the Pumas. They were defeated, admittedly by a point, by the Wallabies at Perth. And although they played splendidly against the All Blacks, especially in defence, they never looked like winning.

The Springboks, in my opinion, are vulnerable even at home right now as they start making the transition from their 2011 side to a side that will compete in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. They haven’t evolved a better system of playing a balanced running/kicking game from their 2007 RWC winning campaign.

This season, for instance, the Springboks have spent only 13 minutes of Tests in possession. They average 33 kicks a Test, gain 278m, and make 73 carries. The Springboks have scored 6 tries and conceded 6 in The Rugby Championship 2014 .

Compare these statistics with the Wallabies: 15 kicks a Test, 410m gained and 115 carries. The Wallabies have scored 7 tries and conceded 10 in The Rugby Championship 2014.

Sides are working the Springboks game out. They are still a side that is hard to defeat as they showed against the Wallabies and the All Blacks. But their restricted game plan means that if a side contests had against them, as the Pumas have done and have a good set piece, then the Springboks will struggle for a victory.

As a coach of the Reds, McKenzie had a great record against South African sides. As Scott Allen has pointed out in The Roar, McKenzie produces specific game plans for specific teams.

The game plan against the Springboks is surely to deny them chances of producing their rolling mauls and penalty shots at goal. The All Blacks did this pretty successfully, however, they did concede a try to a spectacular set move from a lineout that the Springboks produced seemingly from nowhere.

The All Blacks also had four players back for the inevitable Springboks kicking game. And then they ran the ball back at them.

The Wallabies need to do this by bringing Israel Folau more into the game than he has been in the last couple of Tests. Even being quiet he has still run the ball more than any other player  (48). He needs to do even more because he beats more players when he runs (17 in the TRC series) than any other player. He should be told to forget about kicking the ball. Just run it.

Above all, run the big Springboks forwards around a lot. I call this tactic, which New Zealand sides use successfully against the Springboks and other South African sides, ‘the running of the bulls’.

The key to all this is belief. The Wallabies have to believe they have the game plan and the players to beat the Springboks, even though the venue has not been a happy Test ground for them.

It’s time to end the hoodoo.