Don't get too excited about questioning Cheika's appointment

Just three weeks ago, Michael Cheika was belle of the international coaching ball. Quite literally, as it turns out – World Rugby named him international Coach of the Year. And they gave him the award at a ball.

What’s more, he was picked ahead of Steve Hansen, the man who masterminded the All Blacks campaign for the William Webb Ellis trophy, which ended with them besting Cheika’s Wallabies in the final.

Problem is that Cheika, who has been called “super-coach” a time or two, has run headlong into a man who has undoubtedly earned that same title in Eddie Jones. Like the Japanese Ronin of bygone eras, Jones travelled the world, camp-to-camp, honing his skills, perfecting his craft and collecting virtually every known accolade along the way.

And, in the prime of his coaching career, vastly more experienced than Cheika, Jones arrived on our shores with the near limitless resources of England’s RFU at his disposal. Australia’s victory was never a forgone conclusion, as many would have had us believe and – it turns out – not the conclusion at all.

However, all that’s in the past now and we’re forced to the hard realisation that coaching rugby at an international level is a fiendishly difficult assignment. An assignment that only gets more difficult the longer you do it, and Jones has been one step ahead of Cheika from post to post.

Perhaps the most difficult part of coaching at the highest level, insofar as it tests the strength of your character, is the imperative of balancing intense attention to detail with a detached and pragmatic view of the big picture – the so called ‘50,000 ft perspective.’

In short, an international coach must maintain a bi-polar perspective which requires such insight and knowledge that most of us can’t catch a glimpse of it from either side, even for a moment. That requires some pretty spectacular self-assesment and mental disciple, impressive doesn’t even begin to describe it.

Michael Cheika, without question, understands the detail. And he gets the bigger picture too. His achievements show us that, as the only coach ever to capture the Heineken Cup and the Super Rugby Premiership as well as taking Australia from sixth to second in the world in under a year.

But coaches, like players, like the rest of us are ultimately human and from time to time can get lost in the detail and lose that oh-so-valuable 50,000ft view.

And so here I am, at about twenty past three in the morning definitely out of whisky, with the intention of making a case (perhaps pleading is a better word) to Australia’s notoriously unforgiving sports media to resist the urge to call for the coach’s execution and instead, for once, just this one time, support his development as a coach.

It’s for the good of all of us. Our players. Our Team. Us as fans. And the future of rugby in Australia.

So. Hear me out.

Let’s get one thing clear. Anyone calling for broad and sweeping changes simply does not know what they’re talking about. Australia has played some marvelous rugby in both the first and second Tests, averaging more than 70 per cent possession throughout.

In short, they pretty much won except that they didn’t win. But we don’t need to execute the coach and hit the players over the knuckles with a stick, what’s required here are adjustments and nothing more.

Roar writers Brett McKay and Nicholas Bishop, who have a greater affinity for the game than most, have both written somewhat to this point. Both also received quite a lot of heat in the comments for these articles. And both are right.

First and foremost, we should probably address the elephant in the room. A couple of weeks ago I argued that part of the coaching brilliance of both Cheika and the 2016 vintage of Jones is that they understand the archetypes of rugby, those job requirements inclusive of size and shape which have been honed to near-perfection by the combined knowledge of every great coach to pick up a clipboard in the 193 year history of the game.

When you look at it like that, your realise that there’s very good reason we expect props to be fat, locks to be tall, and wingers to have stupid hair cuts.

But Cheika appears to have lost sight of this and instead of sticking to the basics he is trying to outsmart them, much like the Eddie Jones of 2003 that same piece describes.

Michael Hooper is a player of extraordinary talent. His individual contribution is arguably one of the few positives in our only series loss to the old enemy on home soil since the rivalry began in something ridiculous like 1909.

And, that said, the correct decision is for him to be benched. Decisions like this are the reason I select ‘fiendish’ as the adjective apt to describe the responsibilities of being an international coach.

I’ve met Michael Hooper a time or two. He’s a genuinely nice bloke. One such meeting was sheer chance, at a bar in Kings Cross – before the lockout laws ruined it – back in 2013 just after the third Lions Test.

Those of you with sharper memories will remember the third Test as the one where Hooper was dropped for returning legend George Smith who had not played international rugby for a number of years. Hooper, as he always is, was one of the standout players of the series.

Over a beer I commented that despite being a lifelong fan of Smith, I though he was hard done by and it must have been hard to accept being dropped. His response was simple “that’s rugby” followed by something along the lines of “if there was ever a guy to be picked behind…” or something like that. I’m a bit sketchy on the details.

How can you not like that guy? It’s impossible. And in Cheika’s eyes he is not the personalityless player that he is to us. He has been a general and warrior through multiple campaigns. Super Rugby in 2014 and 2015 and the Rugby World Cup as well – never letting him down. In many ways Hooper deserves his position except that he is not the right fit for the team.

Australia’s approach of running rugby requires a fetcher – as opposed to say England or South Africa who are generally content with beating their opponent into submission and collecting points.

Accommodating Hooper’s talent when he is unable to perform that function of a 7 has led to Australia’s best player – and one of only two in contention for a hypothetical “World XV” jersey – David Pocock being forced to play out of position.

In turn, this means that we have no true No.8, which means we lack running options. And additionally we’re stuck we an abundance of short people on the field, which puts the lineout in jeopardy and necessitates the selection of players who contribute little else on the bench. Dean Mumm and James Horwill come to mind.

Eddie Jones once employed a similar strategy. Ironically it was somewhat responsible for Australia losing to England on our soil all the way back in 2003 with a lot more at stake – though, granted, not by much.

Archetypes of rugby exist for a reason. The represent the crowd wisdom of a thousand great minds. No one man is smarter than them.

What’s more, Test rugby positions are as unique as the players who fill them are elite. By forcing players out of position, you’re asking them to learn an entirely new craft – though the new one may have taken them a lifetime to master – while performing at the highest level. It’s simply not fair.

Without being rightfully secure in his natural position and given the value he’s worth in the Wallabies, David Pocock is unable to fulfill his rightful role as captain of the Wallabies.

Which brings me to my next point: on-field leadership.

Stephen Moore played marvelous rugby and was a fine leader of the Wallabies in the Rugby World Cup, but like his vice-captain Hooper he lacks the rugby IQ required for a team to capture and hold the No.1 ranking.

My vote for Australia’s greatest failing in the second Test is an inability to adapt to tactics employed by England in live play – namely the conscious decision of the old enemy to not commit players at the ruck and bolster the defensive line.

Any club coach will tell you that the solution to this simple tactic. Force a maul to commit players in defence because while you can choose not to commit to a ruck, you cannot fail to commit to a rolling maul and by spreading players as England did you leave yourself vulnerable.

Moore should have made this instruction. But as we saw with his inability to handle the referee in either Test, and manage his own temperament, he doesn’t seem to have the mana to Captain at the very highest level – by which I mean a level that only a half-dozen teams in the world play. Pocock has this presence and in particular excels at managing the referee.

Of course Pocock being injured creates a problem in the next Test, but like most things in rugby there are some coaching principles as old as time that can help. A captain must meet three basic requirements:

1) Be on-field for the majority of the match – changes in leadership mid-battle are rarely welcome.
2) Be a guaranteed selection – whether Cheika thinks such a thing exists or not (it does).
3) Have a high and if possible exceptional rugby IQ.

Rules one and two eliminate all but four players – Scott Fardy, Bernard Foley, Israel Folau and (my call to bench him notwithstanding) Michael Hooper. David Lord has been calling for Israel Folau to take up the role, but let’s be real – he’s an outside back playing outside of his native game who has never sought the captaincy. Most probably because he doesn’t feel able to fulfill the role or, perhaps, want it.

It comes down to then, Fardy and Foley. I suspect Foley would thrive under the added responsibility but, thanks to another coaching trope as old as time, giving the captaincy to an out of form key player to bring out the best in him, my interim pick would be Fardy.

You might think my suggestion to leverage the team captaincy to serve a secondary purpose wrong, but it’s a coaching trick as old as time. Another such unorthodox use of the captaincy is to award it to a player of immense talent with disciplinary problems and trust the responsibility of the role to straighten him out.

Don’t believe me? Just ask Dylan Hartley and Eddie Jones. Seems to have worked pretty well for them.

But archetypes and little tricks like those I have described above should not be the sole focus of a great coach. Every so often a coach will create a true innovation, something which will demand more of the way other teams play the game.

I believe Cheika has been responsible for one such innovation, though perhaps he is unaware of just how powerful it was as it seems to have disappeared of late – which brings me to my third and final point: “the Finishers”.

Led by Kurtley Beale, who is absent compliments of a season ending injury (knee), this strategy would have given defensive coaches nightmares in the World Cup. Early in the second half Australia would introduce a second contingent of world class backs – dramatically changing the shape and attacking patterns of the back line. Fresh legs like these would set a pace that the opposition simply could not match.

My observation is that this strategy has been painfully absent during the first two Tests, and I believe our personnel give a unique opportunity (with a couple of personnel changes) to leverage this strategy.

Imagine if at the 50 minute mark of either the first or second Test, where in both cases we were well and truly in striking distance, Australia’s backline morphed into this:

9. Frisby 10. Foley 11. Horne 12. Toomua 13. Folau 14. Naiyorovoro 15. Haylett-Petty.

By bringing on finishers in the tradition of his own making, Cheika would once again find coaching form.

Frisby’s clean service. Toomua as second playmaker. Folau hitting the mid-field. And that’s not to mention, by shifting Pocock to 8 for the final stanza, fresh legs under Tatatfu Polata-Nau, Michael Hooper, Will Skelton (whose selection is enabled by playing a balance back row) and the Fijian wrecking ball Taquele Naitovoro hitting the defensive line at pace.

I dare you to make an argument that Cheika’s finishers, if they looked like that, would have gone multiple 20+ phase possessions without scoring.

The current selections, in part forced by accommodating Hooper, in Horwill and Mumm simply don’t draw defenders. They don’t scare defences. Skelton and Naiyovoro do which is why they should be selected in the impact role.

And that’s about it really, it comes down to us – the Australian rugby media – to realise in defeat Australia have come across an England side and coach of unusual excellence and a result we have copped a beat down while playing some very good rugby. And at the same time, for once, how a bit of patience and realise that we have both the right personnel and right coach.

And whether my proposed “finishing” strategy is the best we can muster, or more likely a professional coach at the highest level can construct something better still, is irrelevant. What’s important is that like any star player, we support the return to form rather than the beheading of what I believe is a very special coach.

And so I ask all of you to help to get behind this message and send out coach the message we all need him to heart – bring back the finishers (#bringbackthefinishers) – and for once don’t ask for this coach to be executed; and instead recognise that he’s a master composer – a master composer we’re trying to show the door before he has the chance to write his symphony.

A while back that same fate befell another genius Australian coach. His name? Eddie Jones.