Weekend Wallabies prove rugby teams need a second playmaker

Well, plenty of Roarers, including me, bought into this one playmaker so that they can have two centres experiment that Wallabies coach Michael Cheika has tried out in the first two games of the Cook Cup.

However, the second game suggests that the Wallabies just ain’t ready for that. That is not to criticise the efforts of Samu Kerevi, who played his part as a big ball running 12 with ball skills better than most of their teammates did their job. However, the sad fact of the matter is that he was only playing his second Test and does not have a set of experienced eyes accompanied by a big mouth that we need in the backline, such as Matt Giteau, Matt Toomua or Kurtley Beale.

Hopefully Kerevi will develop in this manner with experience, as Ma’a Nonu did, but at the moment the lack of another playmaker has just put too much decision-making responsibility on Bernard Foley’s overburdened shoulders.

I rate Foley, while not having the same outrageous skills of the likes of Beale or Quade Cooper, he came to the Wallabies with blistering pace, solid basics and excellent goal kicking and has incrementally built on those skills with a better long passing game. I like his desire to be a central part of the win, epitomised by stepping up for the big match winning goal kicks, and his evident commitment to continual improvement.

However, he does appear to me to get overloaded, and make poor decisions and mistakes when he doesn’t have some experienced backup nearby. This was epitomised on Saturday by his repetitive but not particularly effective running at the English line and failure to look for tactical kicking options, as well him blowing the first penalty kick for touch of the game in spectacular fashion.

There is no shame in this, I doubt Dan Carter would have consistently looked so good if he wasn’t surrounded by wildly talented and experienced backline teammates like Conrad Smith and Ma’a Nonu to feed him advice, so it is unreasonable to expect Foley to do all the thinking by himself.

He functions much better when he has the likes of Giteau or Beale yelling him advice, so getting somebody who can do that job into place has to be a priority.

So where does this leave us in terms of getting some second playmaker support for Foley onto the park in time for the third Test? Disappointingly Christian Leliifano didn’t do anything worthwhile with his own game when he was subbed on over the last fortnight. He would need to assure the coaches of a better performance if he was to replace Kerevi at 12.

I’ve been impressed with Lealiifano’s previous athletic performances at 12 in the past, but I am not so sure that he provides much in terms of direction to the 10 from that position. At least he might be able to take some of the kicking off Foley though, which would allow Foley to concentrate on picking the best playmaking options.

Aside from Lealiifano there is Toomua, though he is only available for one Test before he goes off overseas, so it isn’t exactly investing in long term development to use him. In any case he has played no footy for about seven weeks so might be rusty. Then there is the untested option of Karmichael Hunt at 12 or 15.

Cheika has said previously that he rates this player and he certainly doesn’t mind making himself heard from fullback in Reds games. However, like a few that get mentioned but never picked, such as Liam Gill, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cheika isn’t just using Hunt as a stalking horse to keep the other players motivated.

Irrespective of the three less than ideal options available, choosing a second playmaker at 12 or at 15 would necessitate dropping one of three players, Folau, Kuridrani or Kerevi to the bench. Cheika isn’t going to drop Folau so it would be one of the other two, they can both play 13 if a playmaking 12 is needed though Kerevi would be the frontrunner to start at 12 if the playmaker was positioned at 15 with Folau moving to 13.

Beyond this Test series and its bitter lessons, I think we will be seeing Monsieur Giteau back in the gold 12 jersey for the remainder of the year.

He is the most experienced inside centre who qualifies for the Wallabies and the backline functioned much, much better with him in it last year. Hopefully he can bring the same stability to make the Rugby Championship more fun for Wallabies fans than the Cook Cup has been.