Perfect 10: The great Quade-Foley debate

Since Quade Cooper’s return to the Wallabies line-up in Bledisloe 2 a large amount of the chatter among Wallabies fans has been about whether he or Bernard Foley should start at 10.

I, however, cannot even understand how this is even a debate. Quade is obviously the better choice.

Bernard Foley
I had taken a critical view towards Quade almost ever since the 2011 World Cup, and do not want to sound unfairly critical of Foley as I was a big fan of his over 2014 and 2015. However, in 2016 Foley has been almost unimaginably bad; whereas Cooper has generally played his best rugby since 2011 with a newfound level-headedness.

Statistically, Quade and Foley are equally poor defenders.

The advantage of fielding Foley at 10 is that he offers a more level-headed game, although he does not posses Quade’s attacking abilities. Unfortunately, Foley’s 2016 form has been catastrophically poor.

A common criticism of Cooper is that he takes the ball too deep as first receiver. Foley, playing 10 against first England and then New Zealand, stood deeper than Cooper ever has.

Foley missed easy goal-kicking opportunities against England. While his kicking has improved out of sight he also missed an easy kick – twice – against Argentina when the pressure was on.

His tactical and long-range kicking has been shocking as well.

He had multiple kicks charged-down by New Zealand in Bledisloe 1. Jerome Kaino’s led directly to a try, and Foley was lucky that a try from another charge-down was disallowed due to a slight offside. Even when he gets the kick away it line he rarely gets the ball further than our 22 when kicking from our goal-line.

When Cooper, Will Genia and Dane Haylett-Petty took over clearance kicking in Bledisloe 2 and against South Africa, Wallaby clearances improved out of sight. Unfortunately, Foley once again took up the job against Argentina and again we struggled to clear the ball outside of our 22.

Foley is also abysmal when kicking for touch, rarely gaining more than 20-30 metres and often failing to kick it into touch.

Additionally, his passing game has been woeful.

He set up South Africa’s second try by passing the ball directly to Adriaan Strauss, allowing the Springboks to run the length of the field and score when Australia had almost been guaranteed to score.

Later in the game Foley again passed it straight to Strauss.

Foley at 10 has another disadvantage. Foley requires a playmaking 12 outside of him in order to play effectively, whether it is Kurtley Beale with the Waratahs or Matt Giteau at the World Cup. With Giteau, Lealiifano, Beale and Toomua all injured we have no such options (Reece Hodge is a terrific talent but not there yet). Quade does require the playmaking 12.

Foley’s ineffectiveness at 10 can be seen in the fact that against England Australia enjoyed 64 per cent possession in Game 1, 71 per cent in Game 2 and 53 per cent in Game 3, yet the Wallabies lost every match.

With Quade at 10 the Wallabies had 33 per cent and 51 per cent against Argentina and South Africa respectively, and won both matches.

Hodge is also a better goal-kicking option Foley, robbing Foley of his other main advantage over Quade.

Quade Cooper:
Quade, on the other hand, offers attacking and kicking opportunities that Foley is simply incapable of. Just look at how he set up tries to Dane Haylett-Petty and Michael Hooper with two beautiful inside balls.

He also has the ability to kick the ball out from near our goal-line to halfway, immediately alleviating the pressure on the Wallabies’ defence.

Cooper also combines better with Genia than Foley does.

Quade occasionally still gets lost and drifts sideways, but he has been much-improved in taking the ball to the line. It also must be remembered that it is only his third match back in gold.

Quade’s late hit on Nicolas Sanchez in the most recent game against Argentina was a terrible error. However, it alone does not negate the obvious advantages he has over Foley until such mistakes become regular occurrences.

For the foreseeable future, Quade is our best choice at 10 by far. Because of his poor rapport and teamwork with Foley, Hodge should be brought into 12 and Foley should be moved to the bench.