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So the Wallabies won yet another Test on tour making it three from three in Europe thus far. Hurrah!
Problem is that this is a misleading course of events. It is the closeness of these results that are of concern and these in turn tell the story of an underperforming coach and Wallaby team.
You see as history suggests, in the good old days, we would have put out or ‘B’ side out against the minnows France and they’d have thanked us for taking them seriously.
We would have not only won in Scotland, a team merely made up of every registered player in Scotland, but we would have played with only 11 men to make it sporting for them and we’d still have won by 50.
As for Wales, we would have not only won against such a poor Wales side as we did, we would have trounced them by twice as many points. At which point, each Welsh player would have no doubt bowed down to his opposite number in the Wallabies, handed over the deeds to his house, betrothed his daughter’s hand in marriage, and pledged his life long allegiance to his new ‘master’.
The results on this tour so far have not been good enough, as predicted by many journalists.
We only have to remember back to the Rugby Championship to remember the disgraceful state of affairs Michael Cheika is responsible for.
As you may recall we finished an embarrassing second in that tournament off the back of finishing an equally embarrassing second at the Rugby World Cup. The fact that at no point during either tournament did we beat arguably the best rugby side the world has ever seen, equates to the Wallabies being an utter joke.
Of course when I say the Wallabies are a joke I really mean Michael Cheika. Look at his carry on recently about defending the honour of the Wallaby jersey. You just have to compare this response to Steve Hansen’s handling of the questioning he had to endure at the weekend.
When the ravenously aggressive Clare McNamara dared to ask the honourable Hansen questions about his tactics relating to the All Blacks killing the game for Ireland, we saw Hansen deliver a perfect example of calmness and dignity. It was a response someone like Donald Trump would be proud of. Michael Cheika take note!
The best thing about this calm and measured response is that I doubt anyone would ever dare question Hansen again on New Zealand’s un-sportsmanlike tactics that curiously never seem to warrant any consequence.
The All Blacks have grown to have a monopoly on everything good about the game but unfortunately, under Cheika, the same can not be said about the Wallabies.
Unlike under Cheika’s predecessors, Robbie Deans and Ewen McKenzie, we are now constantly bombarded by incidents of things like poor player behaviour at airports, incidents of misogyny etc. Whereas the All Blacks continue to remain squeaky clean on that front.
Now to the elephant in the room and the question as to why Michael Cheika continually picks a team of mainly Waratahs. I have counted on average this year the coach has selected almost three or four Waratahs per week this season and it is this alarming bias that has every one up in arms.
Last week he selected just one Waratah in the original starting XV but we all know this is just a cunning plan to throw us off his biased scent.
After all, just two games ago he selected four Waratahs in the starting line-up. That’s right! 26 per cent, or as many Roarers call it ‘a suspicious large majority’ of the team were Waratahs!
And get this, sometimes he selects Dean Mumm, a player with 50+ Tests, 100+ caps for NSW, and a successful English stint where he captained his club, under his belt.
Forget that Mumm has been our biggest success in terms of lineout takes this year, that doesn’t change the fact he is irrationally disliked by many, so he is clearly useless and selecting him is tantamount to treachery.
To play devil’s advocate though, two of the Waratahs he keeps selecting are actually John Eales Medallists.
But then again those awards are obviously rigged.
It should also be mentioned that Michael Hooper has also won the Waratah player of the year for the last four years in a row.
But he’s still not worthy of selection. I mean who hasn’t won their Super Rugby franchise’s best player of the year award for four years in a row? I’m struggling to name a player that hasn’t done this.
It could also be said that one of those before mentioned Waratahs that keep getting selected was our best player against Wales.
Okay but let’s not forget that Quade Cooper played really well for the Reds in 2011, so need I say more?
And yes the final Waratah that seems to keep being selected in the starting side is Australia’s best tight head prop, making him arguably our most important player.
This doesn’t change the fact that he too is a Waratah and he should immediately join another franchise.
We should also mention that Will Skelton has no obvious talent that I can think of and should be given up on and sent to third grade rugby immediately.
The same can be said for Nick Phipps who I can only assume is being selected mainly on the bench because he seems to have the correct first name to be a scrum half in Australia.
The problem is that Michael Cheika is too reluctant to blood new talent. He has only blooded a dozen or so debutants this year when clearly he should have made big changes.
Most international coaches blood anywhere between 255 and 755 debutants per year on average, don’t you know, and none of these are ever Waratahs. We seem to be the only Test side that persists with selecting some of our players from the Waratahs, for some inexplicable reason.
The last and final straw is the fact that Cheika is picking players out of position. For example he keeps on asking David Pocock to wear a completely different number on his back and this has resulted in Pocock playing a completely confused style.
When playing at no 7, Pocock used to make a lot of tackles, pilfer and slow down a lot of ball, and make a relatively good amount of metre gains in tight, whereas now because he is wearing a different number he is doing none of those things.
Indeed the last game I saw Pocock wearing a number other than 7, I saw him standing at fullback and clucking like a chicken on several occasions.
Because of all this, as predicted, the 2016 European tour has been a catastrophe thus far.
If we sack the coach, sack the current player of the year, send every other Waratah home, including permanently incarcerating Dean Mumm Silence of the Lambs style to be sure he doesn’t escape and return to the squad for crimes against rugby.
We must finish this off by selecting every non Waratah player that has ever played half decently in a game of rugby witnessed by any rugby fan anywhere at any time, with the promise they will only play in a number that they normally play in, we just might be lucky enough to turn things around for next week.
We would have 72 players in the starting team, including 17 No. 7s, but that’s beside the point because none of them would be Waratahs and that is the right way forward.
If Michael Cheika doesn’t do this, no matter the actual result, the Wallabies will fail.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.