The Wallabies' do or die battles against England

There are three main areas for Australia and England where this Test match will be won or lost.

Two are a test of skill, a balance between chancing our hand to gain an advantage or playing it safe to minimise risk.

The other will be a test of brawn, which if done correctly will tip the scales of the other two to create opportunity and allow this team to play its naturally attacking, in your face style.

The three areas I am talking about are;

1. Attack: Our ability to create enough depth in our wide-wide attack to get around the English defence.
2. Defence: Whether we can pressure the breakdown without giving away kickable penalties.
3. Scrum: Do we have the muscle and mentality to prevent the English using their scrum to exit their own half.

Wallabies’ attack
It is obvious through coach Michael Cheika’s chat and the players’ comments in the press that the Wallabies are going to win playing rugby or die trying. Hats off to them, and I salute them for this commitment to attacking rugby, playing the game as it should be played.

As we have seen, though, this does pressure our skills; especially against a team that rushes us in defence… enter England.

If England’s defence works, as it did against Fiji, it pressures teams in to mistakes or forces them to adopt a kicking strategy. If it doesn’t work, as it didn’t against France in warm-ups and Wales on the weekend, they leave themselves exposed on the edges.

To get around this outside up style defence, the French and Welsh needed to create considerable depth to open up the outside channels. Great if you pull it off, terrible if you don’t as you are now 15-20 metres behind the advantage line.

When you compare that to Australia’s depth in recent games, we play considerably flatter in attack, particularly with Bernard Foley at 10.

If we are not careful, we are going to be caught around the 15m channel, 15m behind the advantage line and struggle to ever regain momentum against a physical English team – and that’s if we maintain possession.

If there is one salvation though, learnt from the Uruguay game, it is that Australia seem to have identified the importance of inside balls/plays and will have this in their armoury to mix it up. A good inside ball will sit this style of defence down and maintain the space out wide for the next phase of attack.

Our defence
Our defence has been a strength to date, with physical collisions and a much greater emphasis on contesting on the ground with Izzy even winning a turnover against Fiji.

The downside of this has been an increase in defensive penalties at the ruck as our newfound enthusiasm draws the attention of the pedantic World Cup referees.

What we are also finding is that without the advantage law to while away the indiscretions, we are getting caught in the instant with our had in the cookie jar, and against England and Wales this will cost us in points, not just field position.

As you can see by the positions of the goals from both England and Wales in their recent contest, anything within 50m is fare game and will be penalised ruthlessly.

Our scrum
Firstly, outside of key situations, I think this will be an even contest as will the lineouts, but there is one situation where Australia’s ability to step up will make the biggest difference.

England use their scrum as a key weapon to get out of their own half, holding the ball in for long scrimmaging plays to draw a penalty which piggy backs them out of trouble.

If Australia is to maintain long periods of pressure in England’s half, allowing us to chance our hand to get around their defence, and push the limits and the breakdown without fear of Farrell’s boot, then this weapon has to be taken off them.

Nothing short of a committed, eight-man, 15-second effort here will do.

Fail this and we can expect to spend more time in our half, where we can’t risk our wide-wide attack, and Pooper is put on a leash.

Get this right and we can let the animals out of the cage at the breakdown, force England to kick out of their own half, and take as much depth as we need to get around their rushing defence… and win!