What's wrong with Australian Super Rugby teams?

When your collective Super Rugby franchises turn in a five-zip result for the weekend and on the back of a three-zip whitewash by the English (oh why did have to be them), when the combined weekend score has numbers so large it looks like a cricketing disaster, and when the reaction of the national coach seems like a shrug, then you are entitled to an above-average level of Monday morning hand wringing.

In an effort to arrest the worst finger pointing this week I would like to state clearly:

1. It is not a lack of player talent or depth.
2. It is not that New Zealand players have natural skills Aussie players don’t.
3. It is not a lack of finance or an organisational conspiracy.

It is none of these things, but despair not! I am going to point you in the right direction. Partly because a rugby season is so much more fun when Aussies strut, but also for the memory of the Wellington Battalion, from the town of my birth.

Those 760 men who on August 8, 1915, made it to the top of a rocky apex called Chunuk Bair and held it under constant attack from above. Who were unable to dig proper trenches, as their Anzac brothers famously did, for it was mostly rock. In honour of Lt Colonel William Malone, who refused the frontal assault order given him lest his battalion be totally destroyed and who died in that place. For those who faithfully stood beside him. Who never took a backward step, who fought until the wood of their gun stocks were too hot to hold. Who didn’t break, run or even retreat, but fought with bayonet among the bodies of their friends. For the 49 who walked out.

Remember, respect the history people or be doomed to relive it.

Okay, so here it is, what Australian rugby has been lacking is what I would call, ‘rugby smarts’.

Think of it this way. When Bob Dwyer, Rod McQueen and Eddie Jones coached the Wallabies they had a recognisable style of playing. The way they played the game was not the same as the All Blacks, Springboks or English.

All teams had the same number of players and played to the same rules. But the things the Wallabies focused on to win the game were significantly different, and even as an uneducated spectator you could see it, even if you couldn’t put your finger on exactly what it was.

Now, the thing about playing in a particular way, or with particular emphasis, is your opposition works it out. Since professionalism, this window has shrunk. Sooner or later other teams develop and implement specific strategies to counter what you are doing. So in this way rugby constantly evolves. The advantage is always to those who innovate because they seize the initiative.

If you stop innovating, someone else takes the lead and I would argue Eddie Jones’ failure wasn’t that he wasn’t a good coach, but that he lost the initiate that Australia had at that time.

That is with no ounce of disrespect to Mr Jones. It was too much to expect a youngish coach to carry all that weight on his own. There is a good case to be made from his recent changes to the English team that he has a clear plan for innovation in that team – and that his plan plays to their strengths.

This is not to suggest any of this is easy to do. It is absolutely not. It requires deep thinking about what is working and what is not. You must have an in-depth understanding of the rules and how they play out in a real game. You have to see a way of playing that is significantly different. You have to honestly evaluate your players’ stock because dreams can’t be executed in a vacuum.

What outstanding skills does your player stock have innate within it?

Are there truly extraordinary individuals coming through your development systems?

If you focus on these extraordinary players, what are the consequences to the whole game plan, to the skills you will need?

To successfully execute this requires time and co-ordinated focus.

It seems evident to me that the All Blacks have been pursuing a new game style for a few years now. If I had to track it back I would guess things started taking shape when Sonny-Bill Williams joined and showed them the impact of the offload. I don’t think the fact that guys like Brodie Retallick, Sam Whitlock and Keiran Read further developed serious offload games around the same time was a coincidence. In 2016, it seems this ability is expected of almost the whole team.

Looking back, the consequences are reasonably obvious. Offloading needs someone to be there to receive the offload. It thrives in a high-pace, open running game. That means you need fast ball and very mobile forwards who can sustain that pace for a full eighty minutes.

When you can’t dictate play during a game you still need a strong game in other areas, but when the opposition go into their shells or give you time and space you need experienced leaders who can turn it on.

As the rugby world has seen, when you unleash a game where everyone seems to offload and keep the ball alive, and you do it at speed, it’s almost impossible to stop for 80 minutes.

Occasionally, the opposition look as if they don’t know what hit them or what to do about it. As a Kiwi watching it unfold against France in the Rugby World Cup quarter-final, it was thrilling to watch.

When it’s flowing at speed like that, well, it is like an irresistible storm rolling in. A tidal wave of ‘poetry in motion’. It’s sporting beauty. It’s the game played in heaven.

So come on Aussie, get back to drawing board with a brains trust and bring us your best shot. We’ll be waiting!