SPIRO: 'Tahs beat the Blues to win one for the Aussie Conference

A journalist friend of mine, who loves the Waratahs and the Wallabies, sent me this email last week: “Something that might be worth pointing out is that I think only one Australia vs overseas Super Rugby side has gone our way this season. That was, I think, Rebels vs Crusaders.”

I did some looking up and discovered that he was right. The record of Australian teams against overseas conference sides in 2015 is: Rebels defeated Crusaders, Brumbies lost to Chiefs, Reds lost to Highlanders, Waratahs lost to Highlanders, Rebels lost to Lions, Force lost to Bulls, Rebels lost to Hurricanes, Reds lost to Lions and Waratahs defeated Blues.

After the Waratahs’ tough 23-11 victory over the Blues at Allianz Stadium, my friend sent me a follow-up email:

“Well, I still think the point is worth making Spiro. Last year’s champion Australian side struggled on its own turf to beat the last-placed Blues – a victory they might not have achieved without numerical superiority. This unimpressive victory was, by my calculation, only the second by Australian side against an Overseas side. There have been plenty enough games to detect a trend, a worrying trend.”

Well, I slightly agree with the affect on the Blues of the yellow card dished out to Jerome Kaino. Dave Dennis fell into the tackle, you could see his knees buckle before the impact of the tackle.

I think the fact that referee Jaco Peyper had to be escorted off the field at half-time by police and security guards, after infuriating sections of the crowd by not awarding the Waratahs a penalty or penalty try after a series of five-metre collapsed scrums, may have affected Peyper and the TMO Peter Marshall (who should have been more resolute).

The Waratahs were leading 16-11 with about 10 minutes of play left at the time of the decision. The momentum of the game had finally swung the way of the Waratahs. And with the inspirational Kaino sitting in the naughty chair, the Waratahs turned on a vintage try, with the ball going through six pairs of hands, before Peter Betham went across the line.

In my opinion, the Waratahs would have won even if Kaino had been left on the field, as he should have been. They may or may not have scored their bonus point try in the spectacular way they did against the 14 Blues players.

I would disagree with my friend, too, about the quality of the Waratahs win. The Blues had six All Blacks in their pack. And the Waratahs out-played them in the set pieces, the mauls and in loose play.

The Blues, too, were playing for their futures. A number of players are going to be dropped from the squad, along with the coach Sir John Kirwan, if they don’t start winning some matches.

Kirwan now has the worst record of any Blues coach in the Super Rugby history of the franchise, with a winning record of only 35 per cent. The squad is loaded with All Blacks, more than the Highlanders, and was touted at the beginning of the season to be one of the top New Zealand sides.

There are three aspects to the Blues that have dragged the team towards rugby mediocrity.

First, Kirwan is not a shrewd selector. How anyone can pick Jimmy Cowan ahead of a young and sometimes brilliant halfback Jamison Gibson-Park, for instance, defies belief.

Second, the Blues do not have discernible systems and patterns of play. As Fox Sports commentator Rod Kafer has pointed out, when teams have organisation they can get into a comfort zone of knowing what needs to be done next when they are in trouble.

At one point in the match against the Blues, the Waratahs were being driven back in a series of hard-shouldered, driving, vengeful tackles, all increasingly behind the advantage line. Finally, Nick Phipps, who had an outstanding game, took a tackle and pushed the ball back gently to the dummy half, after a Waratahs player had yelled out: “set it”.

Third, the Blues are palpably not fit. Teams that aren’t fit make mistakes under pressure, and this is what is holding back the Blues from winning some of their matches.

When Michael Cheika is compared on these three points, he comes out miles ahead of Kirwan, and most of the other coaches in the tournament.

The Waratahs are well selected and well coached, two essentials that are linked like Siamese twins in strong teams. Here I need to mention the vast improvement in the play of Will Skelton this season.

Cheika has got him fit so that he can play 80 minutes, if necessary. He is also winning lineouts which helps Dave Dennis with his calling and jumping throughout the match.

And I noticed that against the Blues, Skelton was used more as a wide runner, rather than first off the ruck. In this wider position, he made about a dozen barging runs that bent and occasionally broke a strong defensive line that was set by the Blues.

Right now, Skelton is establishing himself as one of the Wallabies’ starting second-rowers.

There were two other factors involved in the Waratahs win, too, that I found impressive. The last try was ensemble play of the highest order, as the Waratahs attacked with wave after wave of runners, moving the ball before contact, until Betham had the hole in the defensive line to run through.

The first try, too, was what I call a killer move, a set piece play that completely bewilders the opposition with speed of passing, dummy runs, overlaps and then someone putting on the gas to shatter the defensive line. Apparently, the move was stolen from a Kangaroos play in the 2014 Four Nations final.

Because the Waratahs had to work hard to beat the Blues, and were behind for periods in the match, does not mean that they played poorly. I reckon this was a good win against a side that sooner or later – probably later the way things are shaping up – is going to knock off some of the top teams through sheer weight of talent on the field.

Before the Waratahs had won one for the Australian Conference, three other Australian sides had followed this season’s pattern and lost to overseas sides.

Curiously enough, the biggest deficit was the Rebels’ 12-36 loss against the tournament leaders the Hurricanes. I say ‘curiously enough’ because if you watched the game and didn’t take notice of the points tallies, you’d have thought the Rebels were headed for a victory.

The Rebels looked threatening on many occasions. They put together some fine and disciplined sets of play. But they couldn’t get players across the try line.

They are a side like the Force that lack x-factor players. They are, essentially, a team of journeymen and against a brilliant side like the Hurricanes, who could bring on a kid Nehe Milner-Skudder, bred from champion rugby stock to be the Hurricanes’ next Christian Cullen. They conceded four tries (two of them by the kid in a cameo role) that looked easier than they were.

Before this match, some rugby writers (well, alright, Wayne Smith in The Australian) were indignant about the fact that the Hurricanes weren’t paying respect to the Rebels by resting their All Blacks.

I would make two comments about this. New Zealand rugby is currently going through a golden era where there is talent galore bubbling up from the grassroots, like those geysers at Rotorua, waiting for the chance of exploding on the big stage. New Zealand coaches (with the exception of Sir John Kirwan) are not afraid to throw in young players into big matches.

If they’re good enough, they’re old enough is the motto. It is one that has worked well for New Zealand rugby, and Australian cricket in the past when ‘marvellous boys from the bush’ astonished teams all over the world.

The second point is that the New Zealand Rugby Union has required its Super Rugby coaches to rest current All Blacks for at least two matches in the tournament. The idea is to ensure that the All Blacks do not get exhausted during the Super Rugby tournament before they ultimately take up their Rugby World Cup duties.

I don’t remember reading that the ARU has a similar policy but if it hasn’t, it should have one. The nuns at my convent school used to warn us: ‘What does it profit a man if he wins the whole world, and suffers the loss of his immortal soul?’

In rugby terms, one could paraphrase this as: ‘What would it profit Australian Rugby to win the Super Rugby tournament and exhaust the player so much they are not competitive in the Rugby World Cup tournament.’

The victory of the Hurricanes made it one-all in the Australia-New Zealand contests. But losses by the Reds to the Lions and the Force to the Sharks made it two-nil in the Australia-South African contests.

The most noteworthy aspect of the Reds’ loss to the Lions is that Quade Cooper, admittedly having his first match for the season, could not spark his struggling side to a victory. Admittedly, the score line of 18-17 suggests a tight contest that could have gone to either side.

The Reds blew a potentially match-winning try at the end of the match with Chris Feauai-Sautia losing control of the ball as it was being grounded. The build-up to the missed try saw two unnoticed forward passes, too.

And Cooper missed a drop goal attempt after the siren. But just as sides make their own good luck, they also make their bad luck.

The Cooper miss was a case in point. The Reds worked some desultory one-off charges, Will Genia fired a pass to Cooper who was outside the 22 and had Lions charging at him like, well, like rampant, hungry, angry lions.

Why wasn’t more patience shown and the ball moved forward more dynamically so that the drop goal was a much easier kick?

It was a terrible day at Durban for the Sharks 15-9 win over the Force. Suffice to say, the quality of the rugby was on a par with the weather.

Goal-kicking cost the Force any chance of victory. And then, at the end the Sharks scored a terrific breakaway try that sealed their victory. This try was mis-matched, if that is the correct word, with Kyle Godwin bombing a Force try that would have given his team a well deserved bonus point.

Are there any patterns in all of this along the lines suggested by my friend?

I think the main pattern is that the the Waratahs and the Brumbies seem to be competitive teams, with any side in the tournament. This presumption of excellence will be tested next weekend when the Brumbies play the Cheetahs at Canberra.

The other three Australian sides are essentially making up the numbers for this year’s tournament.

A loss by the Brumbies would tend to confirm the theory of my friend. But I have no doubts about a Brumbies victory.

As for the Force, Rebels and Reds, they are middle and lower order teams in this year’s Super Rugby tournament. None of them, though, have had the pleasure of playing the Blues yet.

The outcome of these encounters will give us the answer to who is the worst team in the tournament. Any the four (Force, Rebels, Reds, Blues) look contenders for this wooden spoon title.