SPIRO: Let the 2015 RWC mind games begin!

The mind games for 2015 Rugby World Cup have began with England criticising Michael Cheika’s decision to take only two hookers to England.

Cheika alert! England, who always carry a QC as an essential part of their Rugby World Cup campaigns, can be expected to resort to legal chicanery if the opportunity to exploit Cheika’s mistake (in my opinion) arises.

Unfortunately, Cheika has set himself and the Wallabies campaign up as an easy and justifiable target.

My guess is that no major side, or any side with pretensions to winning the Webb Ellis trophy, has gone into a Rugby World Cup tournament, in another country/different hemisphere, without three hookers. At least in the last four tournaments.

During the inaugural 1987 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand the All Blacks captain and front-line hooker Andy Dalton was injured before the first game. Dalton stayed in the squad and won a winner’s medal even though he did not play a minute of the tournament.

The young Sean Fitzpatrick seized the moment and played every minute of every game. It is not clear what the All Blacks would have done if he had been injured. The team photo taken to celebrate their 1987 Rugby World Cup triumph shows Dalton as captain and Fitzpatrick, looking like a baby-faced assassin, sitting two players away from Dalton and also in the front row.

That was then. This is now. Since 1987, mainly as a safety matter, the laws of rugby and the protocols of the Rugby World Cup have advanced significantly in the matter of scrums and the requirements to field four props and two hookers in the starting 23.

There was an informative debate on The Roar (a tribute to the intelligence and rugby knowledge of all who joined in) in connection with David Lord’s recent article.

I thought that Red Kev’s response was spot on, pure gold: “Reckless. The purpose of a squad is to cover for injuries, that’s why you have to name one (cover player) – it makes the Rugby World Cup a tests of fitness, management and endurance as well as rugby skill. That’s why you can’t replace players willy-nilly, if you could it wouldn’t be a squad.”

This is a point that is virtually never made in discussing the possible outcome of a Rugby World Cup tournament. Teams are limited to 31 players in their squad, at any one time. This is what distinguishes the Rugby World Cup from say, the Rugby Championship where a coach has access to an unlimited number of players.

This 31-man squad requirement creates a more level playing field for the competing teams.

It especially works against the advantages of hosting a home tournament. Although when the tournament is played in Europe, the European teams do not have the disadvantage of having to fly a replacement halfway across the world, as the southern hemisphere teams are required to do.

The rules of the tournament create a situation where the best team does not necessarily win: the team that plays best in the tournament and under the tournament requirements wins. This is an important consideration that is often overlooked.

And even if Cheika brings James Hanson across to Europe, just in case he is needed, this does not get over the problem that if a player drops out of a squad through injury, he cannot be replaced for two days.

What happens, moreover, if the injury to one of the Wallabies’ hookers takes place a day before a Rugby World Cup match or during the warm-ups?

As Red Kev further points out: “Although Law 3.5 (g) seems to imply that if a team can only name two front rowers on the bench, then they are allowed to have a 22-man team compared with the opposition’s 23 without forfeiting, however that does not relieve them of the requirement to be able to cover the first replacement (blood or concussion being the obvious temporary ones) to each of LHP, Hooker, and THP. That is one hell of a fine line.

“The Rugby World Cup Tournament Rules (1.1.7) state that it is the responsibility of the team to ensure that they have sufficient players in the team to comply with the requirement of Law 3.5 (six front row players are requirement in a match team if the organising union is 23-man squads, as the Rugby World Cup is), in the event of last-minute unforeseen injuries.”

The point that needs to be stressed here is that Stephen Moore went down injured in the first minute of his first Test as Wallaby captain last year.

And Tatafu Polota-Nau, the second Wallaby hooker, goes down with what looks likes concussion virtually every match he plays. Throughout his career he has maintained the dangerous way of tackling, for himself and his opponent, of diving head-first at the boots of a runner.

Why he has never been coached to change this illegal tackling style is beyond me. Jerry Collins started his All Blacks career as a head-hunter tackler. His coaches instructed him to hold his hands high when going into a tackle and lowering them as he made his hit. This took the illegality out of his tackling while maintaining his hard-man approach.

It is an indictment of Australian coaching, at every level, that Polota-Nau, who really should not be even playing Test rugby after his innumerable concussions, has not changed his dangerous tackling method. You would not like to place money on him avoiding even one concussion check during the Rugby World Cup.

Given all this, it is hardly surprising that England has put the cat (Mike Catt, that is) among the pigeons on this issue. Catt is England’s attack coach. He has described Cheika’s gamble of only two hookers as “risky”.

He went to explain this: “I don’t know what the regulations are or the criteria for the actual tournament but that [the presumed requirement to present two bona fide hookers for each Rugby World Cup match] was one of the reasons why [we didn’t pick Hartley].”

Dylan Hartley, England’s long term, fiery hooker, is under a ban that prevents him from playing in England’s first match in Rugby World Cup 2015 against Fiji on September 18.

You don’t have to be a QC to see that there is room in all of this, if the situation arises, for legal mayhem to be launched against the Wallabies. It seems that England have ranked the Rugby World Cup tournament Rule 1.1.7 above Law 3.5 (g). A lawyers’ feast, in other words.

And it should be remembered that England have used their QC in previous Rugby World Cup tournaments to get them out of difficult situations.

In the 2003 Rugby World Cup, England defied an official and had 16 men on the field during a play. The QC got Sir Clive Woodward’s team out of this illegal situation, without the loss of points.

In the 2011 Rugby World Cup, England conducted the worst cheating ever in a major rugby tournament. Jonny Wilkinson was having trouble kicking goals at the enclosed stadium at Dunedin. An assistant coach switched the match balls for a ball Wilkinson had used at practice.

It is unclear whether Wilkinson knew about this. But the assistant coach was slapped on the wrist by being prevented from attending further matches in person.

How England survived this scandal and did not lose points is beyond comprehension.

It is ironic that England supporters and the UK media go on about Richie McCaw being a “cheat”. The articles with this accusation are due to start any day now from Mike Cleary, Stephen Jones and Mark Reason. Yet there was a virtual silence about England’s balls-up cheating at Dunedin, which was real cheating.

The point in all of this is that England will not hesitate to use the full force of the law against the Wallabies, if the chance arises.

Cheika has made himself a hostage to misfortune by stupidly not dropping someone (say Joe Tomane or Wycliff Palu) from the bloated wings/centres/fullbacks group or the equally bloated loose forward group to make way for James Hanson as the third hooker, and legal safety for the Wallabies.

This get us to another (Zavos) complaint about Cheika’s 31-man squad. It seems to me that there has been an element of favouritism in the selection on the part of Cheika.

Kane Douglas gets in the squad after playing 20 minutes of rugby (and undistinguished rugby at that) in Australia this year. He was injured a bit and played poorly in Ireland in the last season. He was a member, though, of Cheika’s Waratahs side that won the 2014 Super Rugby tournament.

Another controversial selection, Palu, was also a member of the that 2014 Waratahs. He has, however, played poorly and been injured at times for the last few seasons.

Polota-Nau’s selection represents more Waratahs favouritism.

The victory over the All Blacks at Sydney confirmed, or should have confirmed, that David Pocock should be the starting No.8 for the Wallabies. He can do everything that Palu used to be able to do with ball carrying and tackling. But he does more at the break down and more linking up than Palu ever did.

Palu’s career, as far as I am concerned, resembles that of David Lyons. He started off with enormous promise as a crashing No.8 in the Willie Ofahengaue mode. But, like Lyons, he never developed any game on defence. You never see Palu in cover or contesting a ruck near the Waratahs/Wallabies try line after the opposition has made a break out.

Stephen Larkham, the Brumbies coach who has been co-opted into the coaching ranks of the Wallabies for the Rugby World Cup, has dismissed the suggestion that a selection panel outside of the coaching staff should be responsible for picking the Wallabies.

Larkham is adamant that the head coach understands the individuals in his squad and “how they will fit into the team environment”.

I would agree with this. The head coach needs to own the responsibility for the team which he presents on match day. It is, as Larkham suggests, the head coach’s “vision of how he wants the team to play” that is the crucial factor.

But, as in many matters rugby, the New Zealand system seems to be worth looking at. The head coach (Steve Hansen) and his assistant (Ian Foster) are selectors, along with a designated outside selector (Grant Fox). Fox can be out-voted by the two coaches, in other words.

In the case of the All Blacks, too, Fox represents that tradition of former All Blacks moving into the ranks of coaches and selectors. He also represents a useful foil for the coaches to test their views on players and tactics on someone who is involved but not actually responsible for much more than selecting the squads and teams to play in the various tournaments.

I have said this before and will continue to say it. It continually amazes me that the most successful coach of the Wallabies, and arguably one of the most successful coaches in terms of achievements in the professional era, Rod Macqueen, is never co-opted into the Grant Fox role for the Wallabies.

Finally, the first apparently silly prediction has been broadcast. At the end of Rugby HQ this week, Greg Martin, ever the enthusiast and optimist, made the prediction that Fiji and Australia will emerge from the pool of death to contest the quarter finals. No England (despite its QC and home ground advantage) and no Wales.

But then, after England’s poor performance against France at the weekend, perhaps the Greg Martin prediction isn’t quite that silly.