Cheika versus Jones: Wallabies to win the battle of the two Aussie coaches

An unintended but significant consequence of rugby becoming a professional game in 1995-96 was the rise of the professional coach owing his livelihood and his status not to the land of his birth, but to the particular team he is coaching.

Australians, for instance, have had the disturbing experience (for some extreme nationalists) of watching the New Zealander Robbie Deans standing in the coaches box before a Wallabies Test and mumbling the words of the Australian national anthem.

At the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament there were more than a handful of New Zealand-born coaches. The quarter-finals of the tournament, in fact, featured four teams – Scotland, Ireland, Wales and New Zealand – coached by New Zealanders.

England, as flexible in their thinking and administration as a poker, were the only one of the so-called Home Unions to resist this antipodean worldwide invasion of coaches.

With the thin-lipped, uptight Stuart Lancaster as coach, England became the first host country of a Rugby World Cup tournament not to make the finals.

The RFU swallowed its bitter pill of pride and appointed the feisty Eddie Jones, a Sydneysider by birth and temperament, a product of the school of hard knocks and Matraville High. A cocky, aggressive, chip on shoulder, smart, thoughtful, loquacious, annoying and as squawky as a gaggle of cockatoos to be the coach of the national rugby team.

If you can’t beat them, pay $1.2 million for them to join you. The coming three-Test series Australia – England that kicks off at Suncorp Stadium, Brisbane on Saturday night, will be the test to see if the Aussie Jones boy can become The Man for England.

**********

So far, so good for Eddie Jones and England.

England have won six of their six Tests played with Eddie Jones as coach. These victories include the 2016 Grand Slam Six Nations triumph (the first in 13 years) and a spanking of Wales a couple of weeks ago in a friendly match, despite 11 players being unavailable and six kicks at goal missed.

Most of the media commentary (including stuff generated by myself) has concentrated on Eddie Jones The Mouth.

The Mouth has promised Bodyline Rugby from his side. The promise here is that with serial thug Dylan Hartley as captain (playing a role perfected by Douglas Jardine), England will be in the faces of the Wallabies, ‘physical, unrelenting, don’t give them a moment.’

Jones has complained, too, that there will be a national conspiracy to undermine England, on and off the field: ‘Australia is a hostile place for an overseas team, you know that everyone’s well-co-ordinated in making sure it’s as difficult as possible, which is how it should be … The media work with the (Australian) team to provide a hostile environment for the team arriving … it’s one of those unique situations only Australia can get away with.’

Really?

English rugby writers don’t try to spook the Wallabies and the All Blacks (and the referees officiating at their Tests) with endless articles about how they continually ‘cheat’ at the breakdown and in their backline moves?

Stephen Jones (UK Sunday Times), say, is a paragon of impartiality?

Of course, there is method in this madness from Eddie Jones. The Good Weekend (4 June 2016) had a splendid profile of Jones, Mr Nice Guy: Don’t Count On It, written by Peter Wilson. The article gets inside the man and the coach to reveal an impressive person with a depth of understanding about himself and his coaching techniques.

Everyone in Australian rugby involved in any way with the Wallabies needs to read this brilliant article and understand that Jones The Mouth is a construct by a shrewd, intelligent student of rugby and life, someone not to be dismissed as a talkative light-weight.

There was a lot of resentment in English rugby about the appointment of a foreign coach, for instance. Jones is conscious of this and understands the need to manage it.

Dean Ryan, director of rugby at Worcester (and, presumably, an Englishman overlooked by the appointment panel) has sniped that the Jones achievements of helping South Africa win the 2007 Rugby World Cup tournament and coaching Japan to an historic victory over the Springboks in Rugby World Cup 2015 ‘are often mirrored by some pretty difficult-to-ignore slumps’ like the seven consecutive Test losses by Wallabies at the end of his stint as coach of the team, Australia’s worst lossing streak in 36 years.

A former school teacher, Jones has analysed his situation as England’s coach as if he were an anthropologist. He has tried to embrace all the factions and power groups of English rugby to convince them that they and he need to work together to make England the dominant force at the 2019 Rugby World Cup tournament in Japan.

‘I am going around speaking to people involved in English sport to understand it better,’ Jones told Wilson, ‘because there are significant cultural differences from Australia.’ Smart thinking, I reckon.

The English players react differently, too, to the abrasive, right-on Jones approach than do Japanese, Australian or South African players. ‘They are definitely more obedient than Australian. They are somewhere between Australians and Japanese in terms of being polite and avoiding conflict, with the Japanese further along that spectrum.’

And why was Dylan Hartley appointed to the job of England captain when he was left out of the 2015 Rugby World Cup campaign because of a discipline record that saw him banned for a total of 57 games in several years for biting, gouging and abusing referees?

‘Dylan is a gregarious, lead-from-the-front, take responsibility guy. Are his chances of making a mistake on the field higher than mormal? Probably, but that is the risk you take, and it has worked out well so far,’ Jones told Wilson.

Jones has an experienced group of rugby thinkers to complement his management of the team. Glen Ella, a class mate at Matraville High and a Randwick colleague, has been brought in to provide the England backs with some modern thinking about back play tactics and skills.

Neal Hartley, formerly a scrum guru at Bath, is now part of the coaching squad with the responsibility to restore England’s set piece to its former bully-boy glory after a series of pathetic scrumming performances in Rugby World Cup 2015.

I would note that it was under Eddie Jones as coach that the Wallabies went through nearly a decade of pathetic scrumming. Jones, in those days, was captured by way-out theories. He calculated that scrums took up about eight minutes of play (those were the days) so his Wallabies practised them for only eight minutes at practice!

Those days have long gone for Jones. The workaholic remains. But there is a more practical, responsible drive to his coaching.

This comes through with his pragmatic assessment of England’s chances to Peter Wilson: ‘There’s no secret about what we have to do to beat Australia. The Wallabies have the world’s best number 7 in David Pocock and the world’s best 15 in Israel Folau, so if we can nullify them we have got a good shot.’

***********

We virtually know that Michael Cheika will start David Pocock at number 8 but playing like a traditional number 7 on the ball. And the Wallaby number 7 Michael Hooper will play in the old-fashioned (back in the early 20th century) New Zealand position of wing forward.

And will Cheika play safe and select Israel Folau at fullback? Or will he adopt a formation I proposed some time ago of a monster centre combination of Tevita Kuridrani and Israel Folau?

This is the combination that Rod Kafer has supported. He told Jamie Pandaram in The Sunday Telegraph (5 June 2016): ‘The way I look at it is if I were defending what would I hate to be playing against, and if I was coming up against a big centre pairing who can run fast and have good off-loading skills, that’s the stuff that really bothers you.’

This makes very good sense to me.

Tim Horan, though, disagrees: ‘I think it is a huge risk for Izzy to be playing 12, too big of a risk … He has never played 12 before … I am a big believer in the 10 and 12 being playmakers.’

Horan was a great inside centre, arguably the greatest Australia has produced. But he was never a playmaker. He was a runner and a fierce defender.

When he played for the Wallabies, David Campese, a winger, played the role of the extra playmaker when the Wallabies were in the red zone on attack.

Campese was ahead of his time. The modern rugby game has developed the fullback position, for instance, as a second playmaker. Think of Ben Smith with the All Blacks.

I am not expecting Cheika to play Folau in the centres for the first Test, at least. Cheika, if past experience is any guide will play Folau at fullback and try to use him in the front line attack when the Wallabies have the ball.

Christian Lealiifano, Samu Kerevi and Karmichael Hunt seem to be the candidates for the inside centre job. Reece Hodge, a player who can fill any back line position except halfback and a goal-kicker to boot, is a dark horse for a reserve position.

I cannot under Cheika’s infatuation with the play of Hunt. Jim Tucker, in The Sunday Telegraph, has pointed out that he has made zero line breaks in his two years and 19 matches playing for the Reds. If Hunt can’t break the line in Super Rugby, how does Cheika think he will do so in Test rugby?

The cautious Cheika comes into play here. Hunt has played State of Origin so, according to the Cheika doctrine, he can handle Test rugby.

There are two matters that need to be considered here. First, Hunt was a State of Origin player some time ago. Second, the attacking stodginess shown in the 2016 State of Origin borathon suggests that flair and attacking skills are not requirements at the State of Origin level.

The news out of the training camp is that the pack, with Sekope Kepu back from France, will be basically the Rugby World Cup 2015 pack. By and large, that makes good sense.

I would hope that Rory Arnold, who has been so impressive this season for the ACT Brumbies, will be the one newcomer in the starting pack.

It would be a backward step for the pack if James Horwill, a 60/7 dispensation player, or Dean Mumm were to partner Rob Simmons in the second row.

Cheika has to start putting some growth into his pack and that means discarding some of the old-timers for new blood. In this respect, the discarded Western Force giant Adam Coleman is a better bet for now and the future for the Wallabies than Mumm or Horwill.

Having said all this, credit must be given to Michael Cheika for resurrecting the Wallabies from the abyss of the last days of the McKenzie regime, pushing them to the final of 2015 Rugby World Cup, and bringing players back from Europe who can offer the Wallabies great depth in all the positions across the field.

As the pyschological jargon has it, the Wallabies are in a ‘much better space’ now, on and off the field, than they were when he was virtually drafted into the Wallabies coaching job.

The Wallabies are becoming Cheika’s Wallabies, finally. As Nick Phipps pointed out to the SMH’s Phil Lutton, even the most seasoned of players, himself especially, are now looking over their shoulders to check out the competition for places in the squad rather than defining themselves in the Ewen McKenzie-Kurtley Beale-Di Patston-ARU showdown.

Michael Cheika’s mind games are intended to inspire his players. They are all about providing competition for places in the Wallabies squad and getting rid of the entitlement syndrome that has previously infected the Wallabies culture.

To my mind, these mind games are far more effective than the Eddie Jones mind games that are directed in somehow getting to the Wallabies, something that Cheika can easily divert to help the Wallabies rather than traumatise them.

*********

Eddie Jones has complained that Super Rugby sometimes put him to sleep. What rubbish!

If he were being honest and not trying to play mind games (with himself?) he would have to admit that some of the performances by the Australian teams, the Brumbies massacre of the Hurricanes at the beginning of the season and the Waratahs slaughter of the Chiefs more recently, must have chilled his soul.

These were performances beyond the capabilities in terms of attacking and defensive skills that are beyond any England side, whether the leading club side or the national team.

Mick Cleary, the UK Daily Telegraph’s veteran rugby writer, reckons that this year’s Six Nations tournament was one ‘the worst ever.’ He went on to make this point: ‘As for the broader issue of quality, there is no doubt a gap to be bridged between the hemispheres.’

The pace of the games in Super Rugby and translated to the Test sphere by the Wallabies is something that the England players are going to find to cope with. The champions of Europe and England, the Saracens, were told by the referee at ruck after ruck, as their halfback stood over the ball as immobile as an emperor penguin, ‘use it!, use-it!’

World Rugby made an interesting announcement last week. A number of tweeks to the laws of rugby that have been in force in the southern hemisphere but not in the northern hemisphere will apply to all the Tests in June.

1. The ball must be smuggled back in a maul hand-to-hand as long as the recipient has contact with the jersey of the ball-carrier. The player in possession is not allowed to slide to the back of the maul.

2. The replacement of an injured player following foul play does not count as one of the allotted replacements.

3. Advantage can be played following a scrum collapse.

4. Play acting or ‘simulation’ is specifically outlawed.

5. Teams must be ready to form a scrum within 30 seconds of the scrum being formed, unless the referee stops the clock.

6. At a re-set scrum following a 90-degree wheel, possession is retained by the feeding side.

7. The scrum-half not in possession at a scrum may not move into the space between the flanker and the no 8.

8. When the ball has been at the no 8’s feet in a stationary scrum for three – five seconds, the referee will call ‘use-it.’

These rules will quicken up play even more from what the England players are used to.

As they say in cards, ‘a fast game is a happy game.’ The same applies, I believe, with rugby. The pace the Wallabies will play at with their Cheika-ensemble game will be too much for the England players to handle.

So my fearless prediction is this – the Wallabies to beat England at Suncorp Stadium.