The 2016 season finished like it started for the Wallabies. With a loss to England.
On June 11 the Wallabies got off to a blinder against England. Quick passes. Players in position. Winning their rucks. Using the width of the field.
Then everything fell apart, and the England went on to win that match 39-28.
Six months and seven days later, the Wallabies got off to a blinder against England. They retained possession. Recycled the ball quickly. Got into formidable attacking patterns. Changed the point of attack. Got all their strike players involved.
Then England pulled the handbrake, and slowly suffocated Australia, before running away 37-21 winners.
There is a small amount of improvement between those two scenarios. In the first match at Suncorp Stadium the implosion was more pronounced. At Twickenham it was a slow burn and fade.
The Wallabies started brightly. After a few minutes I wrote “great continuity to start. Can they keep up, or is this just momentary, like so many other games this year?”
The answer was yes, it was only fleeting and the fast and cohesive start wasn’t matched with enough steely determination to sustain it.
If one were to look at the statistics, having not seen the game, the 16-point margin might seem a little unfair to the Wallabies. Possession, territory, run metres, tackles, scrum and line out wins – all are very even.
But the Wallabies just disappeared for large parts of the second half. Disappeared. Whole passages of the game took place without a single player stamping their name on proceedings or the team producing any rigid and competitive structure.
The same problem has plagued them all year – it is a clear pattern.
We know the Wallabies have skillful players. We know they have attacking brilliance. We know there is defensive starch is there. It’s all been on display this year, but it hasn’t lasted.
The good sides have simply matched and outlasted them, on every occasion.
It took the Irish almost 80 minutes to squash the resistance.
England ground down the flair after 20 or 30 minutes most times this year.
And New Zealand crushed their spirit in five or 10 minutes on some occasions.
The Wallabies season was defined by another pattern, between the players’ ears, which hints at the reasons for the on-field patterns – lack of belief.
I’ve written about it twice before now, but leaving Kafe’s halftime commentary out of any end-of-season would be remiss of me. After the break in the Wallabies match against South Africa in Brisbane, Kafe said the halftime message to the players was not to be surprised if they played well.
The Wallabies were so full of self-doubt someone had to remind them not to be shocked when they played some good rugby.
Looking at the results – five losses in a row to start the season – it’s not hard to see the lack of self-belief.
It’s right there, screaming at you through the inconsistency and disappearances. It’s on the face of a bewildered Israel Folau. It was on the faces of Wallabies forwards pushing people and pulling jerseys instead of letting their game do the talking.
When Bernard Foley faced the media as the team arrived back in Australia yesterday he basically admitted on camera that the Wallabies lacked belief.
“You can’t say the belief’s there because there’s been so many changes, so many new faces, so many guys, you know, playing Test rugby for the first time,” he said.
There’s enough in there that you could read it to mean the players didn’t trust themselves because they were new, they didn’t trust other players that were new or didn’t believe the team could work because there were so many changes. Or perhaps all three could be true.
Either way, that’s bad news for a team trying to compete at the highest level.
The truth is other top teams experienced a lot of turnover this year as well. That’s natural in the first year after a World Cup.
The All Blacks have whole blocks of new players. The Springboks have a lot of change as well as a new coach, and that has contributed to their struggles. England hasn’t had as many players change over, but they’ve got a new coach and had to come back from humiliation.
After losing more matches than they won, the Wallabies 2016 season can’t be classified as anything other than a failure.
The test now is whether the team rebounds from that like England did. It’s unlikely the Springboks will have a second year at such a low level, the Wallabies shouldn’t either.
Finding new belief in themselves needs to start in Super Rugby. All the Australian teams had dismal seasons in 2016 and that had to contribute to a tentative and brittle team this year – the “find a way to win” pattern of 2015 had been replaced by one of inconsistency.
And there’s something more to what Foley told the media today: Next year the Wallabies team needs to be a more consistent line-up than this year.
Some experimentation and combination swapping was essential, and it has unearthed some quality second row stocks, but next year the team needs to settle and find an identity.
Besides Will Genia – behind whom is an empty cupboard of high class halfbacks – I’d try to stick with Australian based players who have a chance to play with and against each other more often where possible.
Onwards and upwards in 2017 for the Wallabies. They can’t leave it to the Aussie women’s sevens team to be the only shining light in Australian rugby for another year.
RobC
Roar Guru
Thanks Elisha. imo its more about WIP, which results in inconsistency. The issue re WB performance is how bad Aus Rugby adjusted to the new rules. Its not just WBs. Its all forms including SR. WBs got better after the June tests. But have considerable work to do.
Vic rugby
Guest
Couldnt agree more! Cooper was so well rested from not being good enough to play club rugby in france He should have been given a chance to play for the wallabies. Seriously does no one remember he had a good season 5 years ago!!!
Vic rugby
Guest
In all fairness to chieko the abs looked tired after beating some old has beens to a pulp If only there were more the abs would have been exhausted
Vic rugby
Guest
Got your excuses all lined up. Well done
Vic rugby
Guest
Try watching the world cup
wally
Guest
ha ha ha, oh lord no. It highlights Foleys shortcomings. How many times have you heard tahs fans say... "Foley is clearly the best 5/8th in Australia" and "he struggles at times without Beale there".... they haven't had a good 5/8th since mark ella so it's somewhat understandable that they don't know what they're talking about mind you. I'd go with QC over Foley and Pocock/Gill/Faingaa/Hodgson/McMahon over Hooper. Some tahs deserve their spots however.
Dwards
Roar Rookie
Worryingly high use of emoticons in use through this otherwise excellent appreciation of sublime sarcasm. ;)
mania
Guest
jonesy - they had morne steyne. a lot of people bag morne for being one dimensional but when it came to kicking there were only ever 2 or 3 players who were on par with morne. to his credit he always did what the coach asked of him and did it with accuracy and consistency.
Jonesy
Guest
2009 springboks
Sul
Guest
Yes it would be a good start but we seemed to have lost that ability Interesting enough I watched an interview with the rugby director of a leading NZ rugby school (produce 36 AB's). What he said and he was generalizing "we want the kids to learn to be able play whats in front of them and think on the run". And you only have to look at how the Kiwi's play, Totally opposite to what I see here in school boy rugby and professional rugby in general.. We have plenty of kids with those abilities but it seems to be trained out of them. The mindset to me seems to be use the power play and stay on plan and if you think and don't stay on course your out. Hence our future professionals loose their Rugby Smarts. And yes school boy rugby is great to watch but you have like playing like".
Taylorman
Guest
Very nice analogy, well thought out and constructed. Enjoyed reading that...?
Taylorman
Guest
ABs are popular?
Taylorman
Guest
Hey, my first car was a Corolla!?
Ken Catchpole's Other Leg
Guest
Grapeseed. Republican has been running this 'populist' argument for about 10 years. Well done. "See! no one wants real food options.Look at how many people are eating Maccas. Obviously they want it!" While all the while ignoring the structural context of access. Rugby, with limited exposure in the major sports pages, and zero free to air coverage at any level is running only fourth in OZ popularity. Wow? Obviously, even rugby people 'prefer' to watch the three other codes now. It's in the ratings. No it's slim pickings. And obviously the people 'want' to know about every NRL player's contract machinations, and AFL player's nosebleed, and want zero rugby coverage most days in the Telegraph. Popularity as an indicator of quality? Hitler was popular.
ukkiwi
Guest
Does anyone think if the Wallabies had lost to Scotland in the 1/4 final last year would Cheika be sending his CV around Japan/Europe?
PiratesRugby
Guest
So your answer Wally, to the problem of an underperforming Wallabies team with too many Tahs is more Tahs?
PiratesRugby
Guest
Are you saying they should learn to just "play what's in front of them"?
Armchair Sportsfan
Guest
So a quick review of the various wallaby season post-mortem articles on the Roar and elsewhere, in which each article identifies its own 'key issue' for the wallabies, show the list of 'key issues' is long and varied... - Lack of Self-Belief - Lack of Breakdown presence (outside of Pocock) - Lack of gainline busting forwards - Lack of skilled kickers & reliable exit strategies - Lack of selection nous - Lack of a 'plan B' There's probably other things, but seems a lot of focus on these amongst journos and keyboard warriors alike. for mine, Cheika seems to be a great motivator, and man manager, and it seems though the playesr enjoy playing for him. These are great strengths, but perhaps recognition of the glaring weaknesses of 'selection' and 'game strategy' could lead to some key hires to build a 'brains trust'....
Nigel
Guest
But yet..and yet Republican, you came on and commented on a Rugby article and added to the hits of this particular article. How do you put your shoes on in the morning? by using a crowbar?.... Someone stop the planet, i want to get off!
Damo
Guest
I've been thinking that the All Blacks current position at the top of the rugby totem is built on a 5 piece platform 1.A creative and well drilled plan for 1st phase plays ad front foot use of the ball- including the set pieces required to deliver that. 2.A high quality defensive structure 3.A very focussed and urgent approach to pouncing on and taking advantage opposition mistakes 4.Quality execution of all basic skills. 5.Patience So much in successful rugby is about winning, losing, regaining momentum in the game. Everybody has great defensive structures these days, which means that 1st phase, orchestrated plays often don't work out. The All Black strategy seems to be that if you have 3 and 4 above, and are patient, you will get the momentum back i.e. score from the opposition mistakes. My observation of the Wallabies, particularly this year has been An over reliance on1. A very good performance on 2.- until fatigue sets in. Almost no clue whatsoever on 3. England made many basic handing mistakes on Saturday, particularly in 1st half, but we just didn't seem to have the mindset to switch to urgent and take advantage. We have talked a lot all year about the Wallabies skills execution. It's improved but is still letting the team down at critical points in games. And patience...yaghhhhh!! On so many fronts we lost the opportunity to take over the game momentum through lack of patience. There is a serious on field leadership issue in this area. Both Ireland and England were very confident that if they could hold out our primary plays, they would tire us out and steal the momentum of the game by preying on our mistakes. England more so. They didn't really need to play much rugby. However they made the most of every scrap we gave them. An almost now forgotten Wallaby coach once said "play what's in front of you". It's actually pretty good advice. The All Blacks are proof that the best way to demoralise the opposition is to keep scoring points- especially when it is done by capitalising on a mistake. We seem to just be too one dimensional in our attack and when it doesn't work we really struggle. At the moment we simply don't have enough cool heads and schemers in the player group. I'm sure there is a coaching factor here but it's also a cattle issue I think.