How the wheels fell off for the Wallabies: Ten crucial moments

I don’t think the Wallabies loss to Argentina on the weekend was as bad as those against Scotland and Samoa in recent years. The Pumas’ IRB ranking doesn’t reflect their true position in world rugby.

They’ve been improving since they joined the Rugby Championship and they’ve come close to beating the Wallabies and the Springboks in recent years. They’re a good team and they played well in this match, so all credit to them for a deserved victory.

But once again the Wallabies will look back at the match and struggle to explain how they couldn’t win it. They started so well and their early form was rewarded with a 14-nil lead after only thirteen minutes.

The positives in that thirteen-minute period were produced through a pack that looked like they’d found some energy and the combination of Israel Folau and Tevita Kuridrani terrorising the Argentinean defence.

It was noticeable that Folau started this match playing a more central role in attack rather than camped out wide, one in from the winger. As a result he got his hands on the ball and defenders were drawn to him, opening up spaces for others out a little wider.

The first try to Kuridrani came with Folau running outside Matt Toomua and his presence attracted defenders before he passed to Kuridrani who powered into the hole created.

The second try to Scott Higginbotham was even better because we saw the forwards in motion and full of running. The previous phase saw Folau carrying the ball in mid-field and he attracted enough defenders to help open space on the next phase.

Nick Phipps ran from the base and committed the defenders. Scott Fardy ran an ‘unders’ line back in towards the defence offering himself as a short option.

Phipps chose not to pass to Fardy and instead passed behind him to Saia Fainga’a out wider. That pass went across Sekope Kepu who was also a genuine option to receive the ball. Outside Fainga’a, Higginbotham and James Horwill were both in motion and genuine options to carry the ball.

With five forward runners coming at them, the defence couldn’t cope. Fainga’a took the ball to the line and passed to Higginbotham who burst through the hole at full pace.

It was simple stuff but if the Wallabies could play like that more consistently, we’d all be very happy supporters.

Unfortunately, almost immediately the wheels started falling off for the Wallabies. Here are the ten crucial points that most contributed to the Wallabies loss.

14:06 Kicking possession away rather than building momentum
Having received the ball from the kickoff after Higginbotham’s try, the Wallabies were five metres inside their own half and were on a roll. They had the opportunity to keep the ball in hand and launch another attack.

Instead, Phipps opted for a box kick and Adam Ashley-Cooper was judged to be marginally offside in the chase which gave the Pumas possession from a penalty inside the Wallabies 22.

In the first thirteen minutes of the match the Wallabies had dominated possession, but from the moment they gave the ball back to the Pumas they found it hard to get it back. By halftime the Pumas had 76 per cent of possession, with the Wallabies having to make 86 tackles compared to only 19 for the Pumas.

29:31 Toomua leaves the field
Toomua suffered a concussion against the Springboks and despite passing the sideline concussion test in this match, the coaches decided not to send him back on. Up to that point Toomua had been playing well, particularly in defence.

I think it was a good decision from the coaches. Regardless of what it means for their team, coaches should think first about the player and we should congratulate them for doing so.

However, the loss of Toomua had a major impact on the Wallabies on-field organisation and they seemed to lose their way in attack. That’s not entirely the fault of Bernard Foley, but he really didn’t seem able to control the game without Toomua to take some pressure off him.

42:02 Phipps yellow card
Phipps was the tackler and as such he had every right to get to his feet and play the ball even though he was on the opposition side of the ball.

However, he could only play the ball from that position if he did so before a ruck formed. Once a ruck forms general play ends and even the tackler must enter the ruck from an onside position to play the ball, which is commonly referred to as ‘coming through the gate’.

The question here is simply, was a ruck formed before he played the ball?

The definition of a ruck summarises the conditions that must exist for a ruck to be formed. “A ruck is a phase of play where one or more players from each team, who are on their feet, in physical contact, close around the ball on the ground. Open play has ended.”

Were there one or more players from each team, on their feet, in contact, close around the ball? The following image shows you Phipps regaining his feet and trying to play the ball but there are two Pumas on their feet, close around the ball and at least one of them is in contact with Phipps.

The laws may say that players must bind on to others with a full arm at a ruck but that’s not how it’s refereed these days. Players in close quarters over the ball in some sort of contact are considered to be forming a ruck.

It doesn’t matter how long they were in contact – that’s not something the laws take into account. As soon as the Puma player made contact with Phipps a ruck formed and the referee was entitled to say ‘you were beaten by the ruck’. Had Phipps been able to play the ball before he was contacted, it should have been play on.

Once the ruck was formed, general play was over and no matter what happened next, Phipps had to come back ‘through the gate’ before he could play the ball, regardless of the fact that he was the tackler.

Even if you argue that because the two Pumas continued on past Phipps and the ball was out in the open so could be played, Phipps was not onside and the only Wallabies entitled to go forward and play the ball were those coming from their side of the ruck.

Phipps was therefore offside when he kicked the ball as seen in the image above. On the back of several other penalties and a warning Nigel Owens had issued, he was understandably shown a yellow card.

It was a massive moment for the Wallabies. The ensuing penalty cost the Wallabies three points and while Phipps was off the field the Pumas scored a try from the scrum base when the Wallabies couldn’t cover up the one man advantage.

45:41 The no try to Kuridrani
Did Kuridrani get the ball over the line and did he ground it? He probably did but that’s not how a try or no try is decided in rugby.

The first thing that has to be decided is whether any of the referees can see the ball grounded over the line. If they can, they’ll ask the TMO if there is any reason not to award the try. If there is no clear evidence the try wasn’t scored a try is awarded. There is no such thing as ‘benefit of the doubt’ in rugby but this as close as it gets.

However, the TMO doesn’t get to this question unless the on-field referees can see a grounding themselves.

In the following image you can see the ball in Kuridrani’s arm, short of the line and up off the ground.

In this image Kuridrani has continued sliding forward, is still short of the line but the view for both Owens and Craig Joubert is obstructed by players.

In this image Kuridrani is over the line and that probably means the ball was too but you can see that neither Owens or Joubert had a clear view so they can’t see a grounding.

As a result, the question asked should be and was, ‘try or no try’ and the footage then had to show clear evidence of a grounding – which it didn’t. There is no guess work involved here and no benefit of the doubt – either the TMO can see the ball grounded or not.

Another camera near the corner post may have showed a grounding but there was no such footage to show the ball being grounded, so it was correctly ruled no try.

But it certainly hurt the Wallabies and if a try had been awarded, it would have made a huge difference to the outcome.

52:08 Argentina score by exploiting the one man overlap
From the back of a mid-field scrum on the Wallabies 22, Argentina take the ball right and use the extra man to outflank the Wallabies.

I didn’t see any defensive error from the Wallabies here – they were just short one player with Phipps still in the bin.

57:34 Wallabies too lateral and Folau bails out with a grubber kick
From a lineout the Wallabies mauled the ball forward then ran a backs play that involved the two centres, Horne and Kuridrani, running straight and narrow with the ball passed out behind them to Foley.

Foley then ran across field and passed to Folau who was also running slightly across field. These lateral movements made it far too easy for the Pumas to slide across in defence.

Folau was then faced with a defenders in front of him and he tried to grubber the ball through for Ashley-Cooper. If only he’d held the ball and taken it into contact, then recycled possession for further phases.

The ball didn’t get through and the rebound went to Argentina with Folau pushed into the player catching the ball in the air.

Nigel Owens made a good decision here to reverse his original decision to issue a yellow card to Folau and to reverse the original penalty. He then seemed to forget about the penalty reversal and I think that was his only major blunder in the match.

69:42 Laser in the eye
No matter what the solution is to this problem, which I’ve only seen occur in Argentina, it is unequivocally an act of cheating and needs to be stamped out.

The cheating has nothing to do with the Argentinian players and it may seem unfair to penalise them for the actions of spectators, but something has to be done to eliminate this blight from the game.

I’ve seen the suggestion that a re-kick be allowed if this occurs. A re-kick is awarded if the defending players charge a kick illegally so an expansion of this law makes sense to me.

I think the spectators will soon stop this behavior if the kick is re-taken and the Argentinian players and coach start pointing out to fans that it is costing their team, not helping it.

70:01 Folau again gives up possession with a grubber kick
Israel Folau with ball in hand on the opposition 22 with Adam Ashley-Cooper in some space out wide offers plenty of good possibilities for a try to be created. At worst, the Wallabies should be able to recycle the ball and continue applying pressure on the Pumas line.

Ashley-Cooper is not in the frame but is out wide but the Argentinean fullback, Joaquin Tuculet is also just out of the frame.

This decision was worse than the previous one because even a perfect kick was going to go to the Argentinan fullback.

73:35 Hooper receives yellow card
Like it or not, referees all over the world have been instructed to penalise players who don’t show a ‘duty of care’ for players in the air or in a vulnerable position, such as a kicker. I know there’s no reference to ‘duty of care’ in the laws and I know this type of penalty didn’t get awarded two to three years ago but it does now.

I also know that Michael Hooper jumped before the ball was kicked and couldn’t change direction in mid-air, but that is irrelevant to the way the game is refereed now. It’s not about intention or whether contact could have been avoided – it’s a question of whether a player clatters into a player that is in the air or in a vulnerable position.

The following image shows that Hooper clatters into the kicker who is in both a vulnerable position and still in the air (only just). That means it will be awarded a penalty nine times out of ten.

If that was an isolated incident a penalty should have been all that was awarded. The fact that Hooper and Will Skelton had both been penalised for high tackles within the previous three minutes and a clear warning had been given to Hooper about any more contact with the head meant that a yellow card was always going to be issued.

79:44 Needing to win their own feed the Wallabies collapse the scrum
With a couple of minutes to play the Wallabies had one final chance to snatch a late victory. They had a scrum feed just inside the Argentinean half and that gave them a good platform to launch a last ditch attack.

But after several scrum resets Ben Alexander was penalised for binding on the arm which caused the scrum to collapse. Does this make sense – why would the Wallabies want to collapse the scrum on their own feed?

Regardless of what they intended, the referee was correct. Alexander was binding on the arm, he was overextended and with his elbow pointing up he was applying pressure downwards. The combination of those factors led to the scrum collapsing.

The problem starts with Alexander setting up way too high before the bind is called. Look at how straight his leg is in the following image and the way his upper body is angling down.

The only way he can get low enough from this position is to pull his legs back too far so that his weight is out in front of his knees as you can see in this image.

From that poor position it’s very difficult to do anything but go to ground and as you can see in the following image it’s Alexander who has his knee on the ground while the Argentinean loosehead prop is still trying to hold the scrum up.

There were lots of other crucial moments that cost the Wallabies this match but one of the biggest factors that is a real negative and can’t be ignored is Michael Hooper’s captaincy. I’m sure he has the potential to be a good captain but he’s not up to captaining an international team at this time.

He has been handed a very difficult assignment for one so young and inexperienced. It’s not his problem that he’s still got so much to learn about leadership, but it is an issue in the short term.

The two exchanges he had with Nigel Owens, who I consider the best referee in the world, during the second half were telling.

In the 64th minute Owens asked both captains to speak to their teams as there was too much poor discipline. Hooper’s reply was “I’ve spoken to them a couple of times, it’s just hard…”. He didn’t get to finish the sentence because Owens told him “Well they’re not listening and you need to speak with them again”. The audio isn’t clear enough to pick up what, if anything, Hooper said to the team but he didn’t seem like he was in control on the field.

Then when Owens issued him with the yellow card he told Hooper “You’ve gone high tackle, high tackle – I’ve asked for discipline and you’re not listening. Not my issue”.

The Wallabies will not get out of the mess they’re in without a change of captain or a dramatic turnaround from Hooper. Their poor performances are not all his fault but the team desperately needs a captain to lead them, not just make decisions about which side of the coin to call for.

Until Stephen Moore returns, I’m not convinced there will be a change so Hooper needs to find a way to get control of the team or the Wallabies are in for a few more scoreboard shocks in the remainder of this season.