Spiro's Rolling Maul: At least Wallabies aren't peaking too early!

Peter FitzSimons, bless him, used to mark a year or so before a Rugby World Cup tournament with columns predicting that ‘the All Blacks are peaking too early!’

The FitzSimons theory was that having a great year before the Rugby World Cup virtually ensured not winning the tournament.

The theory worked pretty well, as far as the All Blacks were concerned, from 1991 to 2007.

But it failed in Rugby World Cup 2011. Before readers make the stupid point that the All Blacks were ‘lucky to win’ in the Rugby World Cup 2011 final, it needs to to be understood that all the Rugby World Cup finals except 1987 and 1999 have been nail-biters.

In Rugby World Cup 2007, for instance, the Springboks smashed England in the pool rounds, as the All Blacks did to France in Rugby World Cup 2011. But it was a close-run thing in both finals.

Having said this, as far as predictions go the ‘peaking too early’ theory has worked pretty well. So about the best aspect I can find from the Wallabies’ so far woeful European tour is that they will avoid the FitzSimons prediction of peaking too early before the 2015 Rugby World Cup.

The opposite to zenith, where the All Blacks traditionally have been placed, is nadir. And this is where the Wallabies are finding themselves. They have lost five out of their past six Tests. The only victory in this dreadful sequence has been a tight win against Wales.

Under Michael Cheika the record is not quite as bad: two losses in three Tests. But the Wallabies are facing a really hard Test this weekend against England at Twickenham. Another loss will create the worst Wallabies European tour in about a decade. In 2005 the Wallabies, under Eddie Jones, won only one Test on their European tour. This is the same sort of record that Cheika’s Wallabies will create if they are defeated by England.

The Wallabies know how England will play. They will drive from virtually every lineout. They will kick bombs from the ball they don’t drive. They will try to scrum the Wallabies into the Twickenham dirt at the set piece. It will be attritional rugby made vicious from some inevitable thuggery from Dylan Hartley, a player who needs to be punished severely by referees for his incessant foul play.

Cheika has talked about the back-three catchers, Israel Foley, Nick Phipps and Bernard Foley, needing to position themselves better to field the bombs. Both Phipps and Foley are small in stature. If a team’s main attacking focus is raining bombs, it makes no sense having these two players as catchers. Why not Adam Ashley-Cooper and Henry Speight, at least, to give some height and catching ability to the back three?

Also, why not put some pressure on whoever is doing the bombing in the England backline?

And while we’re on a roll with some advice, let’s have some shrewd tactics to combat England’s driving maul. Ireland virtually defused the Springbok’s maul by refusing to engage after a South African lineout catch. Then with the ball at the back of the stationary, unengaged Springboks maul, an Irish forward legally rushed forward and took the ball off a Springboks forward.

Brilliant. Let’s see some of this inspired thinking from the Wallabies on Saturday.

One final point. Let’s see the bench make the sort of impact that strong benches are supposed to make. This hasn’t happened so far under Cheika. The Wallabies, under his coaching, have scored eight tries in Tests, but only one of these tries has come in the second half of a Test.

Against Ireland last week the Wallabies had far too many playmakers on the field towards the end. Cheika needs to be cleverer with his bench selections. I mentioned this point when Ewen McKenzie was the coach. Neither Cheika nor McKenzie have thought hard enough about what the qualities a bench player needs to have, as opposed to a starting player.

We are going to find out a lot about Cheika as a Test coach and the Wallabies as a potential Rugby World Cup tournament contender in the Test against England. Hopefully the information will be positive.

The Wallabies are slipping down the World Rugby Rankings
The latest World Rugby Rankings show the Wallabies in fifth place, their worst placing since the ranking began in 2003.

New Zealand 1, South Africa 2, Ireland 3, England 4, Australia 5, Wales 6, France 7, Scotland 8, Argentina 9, Samoa 10.

There are several intriguing aspects arising out of this table. England, Australia and Wales are in the same pool, The Pool of Death, in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. One of the top six teams in world rugby, therefore, is not going to make the finals.

Ireland’s high ranking is well-deserved. They ran the All Blacks extremely close last year, while this year they have defeated the Pumas in Argentina twice, and have defeated the Springboks and the Wallabies at Dublin. Very impressive. They are the reigning Six Nations champions and a final gauge of how impressive they will be in next year’s Rugby World Cup will come with the 2015 Six Nations tournament.

Although Argentina are ranked only ninth, they were impressive in their defeat of France last weekend at the Stade de France. France was on a roll after defeating the Wallabies, but the Pumas unveiled a Springboks tactic from 1999 (remember Jannie de Beer and his five drop goals in one match!) by scoring four drop goals to edge out France, 18-13.

It was the Pumas who introduced the bombing game to world rugby in the opening match of the 2007 Rugby World Cup tournament to defeat France. This win for the Pumas and defeat for the French meant that the All Blacks played France at Cardiff rather than the Pumas, who have never defeated the All Blacks.

What is interesting to me is that the Pumas, with their drop-goal scoring method, could be anticipating the sort of negative refereeing that blighted the 2007 Rugby World Cup tournament with the attacking side being penalised invariably, even when the tackler did not allow the runner to place the ball.

The referee for this Test was the Irishman George Clancy, an official who always seems to get the worst out of the teams he is refereeing.

Unfortunately, world rugby has a soft spot for Clancy. They gave him the All Blacks vs Tonga Test, the opening match of the Rugby World Cup 2011 tournament, which he almost ruined with his nit-picking approach that encouraged defensive rather than attacking rugby.

Both Nigel Owens and Wayne Barnes, leading candidates for the finals matches in Rugby World Cup 2015, along with Craig Joubert and Romain Poite, have been hostile to the attacking side allowing defenders to roll into the zone where the ball is being placed. Both these referees, too, have been extremely tolerant on sides like England and Wales having players go down frequently with (feigned?) injuries, along with taking an eternity to walk into a lineout on their own throw.

Have the Pumas twigged to the possibility that the European referees are determined to impose slow-death northern hemisphere rugby on the Rugby World Cup 2015 tournament?

Jerome Garces, a French referee, is officiating in the England vs Wallabies match at Twickenham. This is a referee who has in the past thrown yellow cards around like confetti. Owens is an assistant referee. If you were an England supporter, these would be the two referees you would want, especially with Owens in his current mode of allowing England to slow down the pace of Tests to suit the fat men of the England pack.

3. Will England put on the biff?
Like the Wallabies, England have suffered five losses in their last six Tests. The solitary victory was last week over Samoa 28-9. Publicly, Stuart Lancaster is saying that he isn’t panicking. But the British rugby media is. Lancaster and his team are taking a hammering from the scribes.

According to Paul Hayward of The UK Telegraph, “England are like an honest racehorse that exhausts itself reaching the flanks of the eventual winner but lacks the class and finishing speed to go past.”

Sir Clive Woodward insists “England are in a real hole.”

The kicking, negative and slow-plod game that England have been playing is a far cry from the expansive and exciting play promised by Lancaster. And a lot of niggle and off-the-ball play has become a feature of England’s game.

There is criticism, too, that Owen Farrell (a niggler and a diver in the soccer manner) is receiving favourable selection treatment from the coach and the selectors because his father is one of the coaches.

Against Samoa, England were helped enormously by an unjustified (and this is the opinion of Planet Rugby) yellow card against Johnny Leota. A third and clinching try was scored when Leo was off the field. The referee who presided over this yellow card mistake was the South African Jaco Peyper.

Interestingly, the only time England have been refereed in a convincing manner this November was in the Test against the Springboks, which they lost. The referee was Steve Walsh. The serial thug and agent provocateur Dylan Hartley was given a (well-deserved) yellow card for stamping on Duane Vermeulen.

“There was nothing malicious in it,” Hartley said later. Pull the other leg, I say.