SPIRO: Waratahs outplayed by Highlanders' 'master class'

First things first. The Waratahs and the Brumbies were given a “master class” (the telling phrase of Fox Sports commentator Greg Clarke in praise of the Highlanders) by their New Zealand opponents, the Highlanders and the Hurricanes, in the 2015 Super Rugby semi-finals.

In an interesting article in Saturday’s The Australian, Wayne Smith pondered on the possibility of an all-Australian Super Rugby final. He opined that if this happened it would augur well for the Wallabies in their 2015 Rugby World Cup campaign.

He pointed out that the last time two sides from the same conference played in the final was 2007, when the Bulls and Sharks charged into each other. This was the year, too, when the Springboks won their second Rugby World Cup tournament.

Going on this theory, the All Blacks look to be well-placed then for their 2015 Rugby World Cup campaign to win back-to-back tournaments, for the first time in the history of the competition.

More importantly, the quality of the play of the Hurricanes and the Highlanders, their controlled aggression, the certainty of their set pieces, the brilliant running and passing of backs and forwards and the ability to set up phase after devastating phase of improvised rugby based on numerous flexible rehearsed structures (I know improvised/rehearsal sounds a contradiction in terms, but it isn’t) provided the thrilling and effective rugby that provoked Greg Clarke’s ‘master class’ description.

Now let’s be blunt. All this agitation from Waratahs supporters in booing South African referee Craig Joubert off the field, Michael Cheika calling Joubert’s decision (seconded by the TMO, Australian George Ayoub) to yellow card Jacques Potgieter “dubious” and Phil Kearns claiming that Joubert had “a shocking game” is not helpful for the future success of the Waratahs.

The ‘we wuz robbed’ rant allows an emotional relief, perhaps, but it does nothing about understanding why the Waratahs were totally out-played and what needs to be done to ensure that next year this does not happen, if the team gets into the finals, as it should.

The All Blacks were subjected to perhaps the worst refereeing and assistant refereeing performance at a Rugby World Cup tournament against France in 2007 at Cardiff in the quarter-final. Yet Graham Henry went into the French dressing room after the match, as he always did when the All Blacks lost, and congratulated the French team and coaching staff for their victory.

Henry waited five years, after the 2011 Rugby World Cup tournament and until he had retired from the All Blacks, to publish a detailed and devastating critique of Wayne Barnes and Jonathan Kaplan.

If the All Blacks had gone public immediately, they would have been locked into the ‘we wuz robbed’ mentality and not addressed those aspects of their game that let them down at Cardiff.

And let us not forget that a year ago, the same Craig Joubert ruled Richie McCaw offside at a ruck in the last seconds of the 2014 Super Rugby final at Sydney between the Waratahs and the Crusaders. Bernard Foley’s successful conversion of this penalty meant that the Crusaders lost a final they had in the bag.

Joubert subsequently apologised to McCaw for making a wrong decision. He will not be apologising to Dave Dennis about the Potgieter decision. Why? Because it was the correct decision.

Judging by the emails I have received, though, and the agitated conversations from former Wallabies/Waratahs and supporters, from Cheika’s response and Kearns’ outburst of ignorance, the ‘we wuz robbed’ chant is going to be the dominant meme to explain what was an extremely lacklustre and dumb performance by the Waratahs.

We start with the notion of strict liability in discussing the Potgieter yellow card. Tackles above the head with the swinging arm used by Potgieter are never legal. Motive is immaterial. The fact of the swinging arm is the critical matter. When the swinging arm is dangerous, say smacking into an opponent’s jaw, the only discussion about a sanction is whether it is a yellow or a red card.

If you look at the Potgieter incident, you will see that he was caught out of position by a brilliant pass from Aaron Smith. Potgieter moves across and eyes winger Patrick Osborne as he falls towards the try line in a tackle. The point here is that Osborne is falling towards the ground before Potgieter makes his swinging arm tackle.

Osborne does not fall into the swinging arm. The swinging arm is adjusted to smack into Osborne’s jaw.

You can see from the video that Potgieter is actually lining Osborne up before he swings his arm across to smack into his jaw. Osborne, in other words, does not fall into the tackle. Potgieter swings his arm in the arc that enables him to smack the jaw of Osborne.

The wonder of all of this is that Osborne actually held on to the ball, despite his face being smacked, and placed it near or over the try line. If he had spilled the ball, then a penalty try would have been an open and shut case.

What needs to be remembered in all of this is that a couple of weeks ago World Rugby (the former IRB) issued a set of instructions about closer monitoring of the attacking side in rolling mauls and strict liability for players indulging in head high and head-grapple tackles.

In the Under-20 World Championship final between New Zealand and England, several New Zealand players were given penalties for innocuous head high tackles. The tackles were head high, and the new rules forbid this sort of contact. If the tackles had been dangerous, as the Potgieter tackle clearly was, the penalty would have been a yellow or red card.

My beef with commentators like Phil Kearns who described Joubert’s decisions as “shocking” is that this inflames viewers and supporters and is based on a profound ignorance of the laws of rugby.

Of course we all get things wrong in discussing and commentating on the game. But the profound ignorance shown by Kearns, which was immediately countered by Rod Kafer, tends to set up an angry response from Waratahs supporters and viewers.

Professional broadcasters have a responsibility to the game to have a basic understanding of the laws of an admittedly complex game.

And I would add to this, coaches as well. Take this provocative and uninformed comment by Cheika at the press conference about the yellow card incident: “I know I haven’t seen many head-high tackles 30 centimetres from the ground.”

Cheika must have seen that when Potgieter was lining up Osborne for a shot at his head, the Highlander winger’s head was 30 centimetres from the ground. Presumably if Osborne’s head had been a metre or more above the ground, he still could have had his jaw smacked.

There are two other points I would make about this incident and the way it has played out on the field and in the media.

First, Potgieter was a time-bomb waiting to explode against the Waratahs. All this season, with the encouragement of Cheika, Potgieter has been smashing players illegally, on and off the ball. I discussed this on Saturday morning on New Zealand radio when I said that the Waratahs should beat the Highlanders but that the only worry I had for the Waratahs was that a player like Potgieter would get a yellow card for some illegal play.

I noted that the Waratahs seemed to have a licence from Cheika to play with an excessive disregard for illegal dangerous play. This could come back to bite them, I suggested.

During the match I noticed, too, Will Skelton taking out a Highlander without the ball who was standing his ground well away from the ball just because, presumably, he was there and Skelton felt like smacking into someone.

Second, the concentration on the ‘we wuz robbed’ nonsense about the incident distracted all the attention from the extremely clever play by the Highlanders to set up Osborne for his penalty try.

After several barging runs towards the Waratahs try line, the Highlanders placed a front line of five attackers and a second line of deeper standing backs.

Aaron Smith, in my opinion now to be ranked with Ken Catchpole and Gareth Edwards as the greatest all-round halfback in rugby history, had numerous choices of runners to pass to. He chose to fire a bullet pass across the first three flat runners to Osborne. Osborne, a tall man, was tackled but had enough momentum to fall towards the try line.

Potgieter, caught out of position and wanting to make a killer tackle, came across, lined Osborne up and let fly with his swinging arm…

This ability by the Highlanders to out-think and out-play the Waratahs is the most disturbing aspect of the game, as far as I am concerned.

Here we had the Highlanders with three All Blacks, all of them backs, playing a Waratahs side with 13 Wallabies. Yet the Waratahs were out-classed in the lineouts, generally out-scrummed and certainly out-thought in terms of tactics throughout the match.

Rod Kafer, a terrific analyst who should be seated with Greg Clarke by himself, pointed out at half-time that the Highlanders had directed their kicking to their right and the Waratahs’ left side of the field. There were no left-foot kickers in the Waratahs and they found it hard to get of their 22 from this position.

Cheika was asked about this as the players came on to the field for the second half. We know about it, Cheika said, and we have a plan to do something about it.

Someone has suggested that the plan was to play Israel Folau more to this side of the field to run the ball back. But it didn’t seem to work. The Highlanders continued the tactic and piled on 20 second-half points to their 15 accumulated in the first half, and conceded only a penalty to the Waratahs.

Since 2003, 87 per cent of home finals have been won by the home side. Moreover, the Highlanders came to Sydney without a win there.

I would rate their five-try victory over the Waratahs as one of the best results by a travelling side playing a final. In many ways it is better than the Brumbies’ six-try victory over the Stormers because the Waratahs are a much better side than the Stormers.

The Brumbies, for their part, were also out-played and out-thought by the Hurricanes. But they played with much more spirit and resolve than the Waratahs.

A tremendous and relentless opening 20 minutes from the Hurricanes seemed to be the prelude to a flood of points. But it is to the credit of the Brumbies that they managed to contain the flood to a mere flow of points, and even well into the game they actually had a remote chance of pulling off a victory.

I applaud the resolve of the Brumbies, too, to start with their ball-in-hand game before changing, when this wasn’t working, to their driving game. And when this didn’t work, they tried some enterprising ad lib rugby. If Jesse Mogg had scored that breakout try…

When sides are not as good as their opponents – in this case a brilliant, well-coached Hurricanes side with 12 players in the All Blacks squad – you have to admire the tenacity of the Brumbies in trying to prevent the inevitable. The Brumbies showed great heart in their defeat. And we must remember that in the last two weeks, they have flown to and back from South Africa, and then on to Wellington.

But they could not conquer a side that delivered a driving maul, at pace, to score the sort of try that has been a Brumbies trade mark this season.

Individually, there was not one Brumbies player who had the better of his opposite number. Ardie Savea, for example, totally out-played David Pocock, who was probably one of the Brumbies’ better players.

Incidentally, Pocock’s muscle-bound game was rather cruelly exposed by the pace of the Hurricanes in all parts of the field. Michael Hooper was more effective against a similar fast-paced Highlanders pack than Pocock in his game. Food for thought for Michael Cheika here.

Similarly, the Highlanders, especially at the lineout, exposed the liabilities of having a non-jumping second-rower like Will Skelton. The Highlanders actually put one of their loose forwards, easy to lift, to mark Skelton (who claimed one lineout) and then stacked the back of their lineout to pick off the Waratahs’ throws.

In general play, the Highlanders gang tackled Skelton, like a group of angry crocodiles attacking a hippo. Skelton also found the pace of the game rather difficult to cope with, too. Towards the end of the match I saw him almost down to a slow-motion walk. It may be that his best role in international rugby right now is as an impact player.

And yet another problem for Michael Cheika wearing his Wallaby coach cap was the lack of nous and effectiveness in the play of Bernard Foley.

Foley seemed like a headless chook for most of the game and towards the end, when the game was lost, he lost his cool and started trying to take on Highlanders by throwing handbags rather than smart, telling passes.

I wondered from all of this whether Foley is the sort of number 10 who needs a play-making inside centre like Kurtley Beale to enhance his options and his general direction of play. But then this two five-eighths game has been superseded by the big inside centre tactic with the fullback, Ben Smith for the Highlanders as an example, being the second playmaker.

These are problems for the new Waratahs coach, Daryl Gibson, for next year.

But right now and more importantly they are serious problems for the Wallaby coach Michael Cheika, formerly of the Waratahs, going into the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament.