The Wrap: Can the Wallabies shift the focus back to rugby?

In any bereavement situation, there are stages of shock, grief, anger, acceptance and recovery.

Since Friday’s announcement by the ARU that the Force are to be “discontinued”, the first three of those elements have been prominent, with Force fans and sympathizers from around the country unified in denouncing both the decision and those at the ARU deemed responsible for chopping Western Australian rugby off at the knees.

For those emotionally invested in the Force, the ‘acceptance’ and ‘recovery’ phases are a long way into the future. Australian rugby can only hope that the anger will subside over time and that good rugby people – players, coaches, officials, club volunteers, parents, casual followers – aren’t lost to the sport as a result.

That there has been significant damage done to the sport in a key market is indisputable. No matter that there are important mitigating circumstances – many of them outside the influence of the ARU – angry fans are understandably in no mood for alternative or rational assessments of the bigger picture.

In normal times, changing the subject and shifting the attention of the rugby community towards the Wallabies might be considered a smart strategy. But for the ARU, come 10pm next Saturday night, dealing with the situation around the Force might be seen as the lesser of two evils.

Every rugby Test is important, but for Australian rugby, there is a sense that this opening Bledisloe Cup/Rugby Championship match is as important as any played in recent memory.

The ARU desperately needs an injection of positivity into an arena that remains persistently negative. All of the good work done by the Wallabies to engage the communities of Cessnock and Penrith in the last week has counted for nothing, because their bosses have stolen the headlines.

With their bed now made, and CEO Bill Pulver having announced his exit, there is nothing that the ARU can do in the short term to improve their situation other than let the venting run its natural course, pray like there’s no tomorrow that a decent crowd rolls up to ANZ Stadium to support the players, and that TV viewer numbers don’t fall off a cliff.

These are modest goals, but then again, these are extraordinary times.

Michael Cheika is a redoubtable character who is not afraid to do things the hard way. But even he, when he signed on for the job of Wallabies coach, would not have expected that his job description would entail ‘last remaining potential saviour of Australian rugby.’

(AAP Image/SNPA, Ross Setford)

Cheika has that responsibility because the fastest way – and right now the only way – for Australian rugby to climb out of its funk is for the Wallabies to start winning. Against anybody; but most importantly, against New Zealand.

Fans who have pledged this week never to support Australian rugby again or cancel their TV subscriptions in protest will deny it, but if the Wallabies were somehow able to reclaim the Bledisloe Cup, most of them would be back on board faster than Romain Poite changes his mind about an offside penalty.

All of which is far easier said than done.

The language from the Wallabies camp over the last few weeks has been defiantly optimistic and positive, as it must be. The British and Irish Lions have provided a blueprint for other teams to follow, and prised open a hole in the All Blacks’ shield of invincibility for the Wallabies to storm through.

Moreover, fans have been promised a different Wallabies. Lard-arses and passengers have been dispensed with and no more will a side coached by Cheika fade out of games in the final quarter due to inferior fitness or indifferent attitude. As ever, Cheika is striving to put only the players onto the field who resemble himself and who mirror his values and worth ethic.

Kurtley Beale is back in the fold, (although may need most of this week to fully confirm his recovery from injury), Michael Hooper is a popular choice within the camp as captain, and leading players such as Israel Folau and Adam Coleman finished the Super Rugby season off strongly.

Therein lies a significant problem. For Australia, Super Rugby finished weeks ago. The Wallabies camp has provided an opportunity to get the side fit, build spirit and bake in a robust defensive system, but the danger for sides that spend too long without playing is that the mind can get ahead of the body, and that the metrics used for measuring improvement are internal, artificial and don’t take full account of an opponent like the All Blacks.

(AAP Image/SNPA, Dianne Manson)

By contrast, most of the All Blacks’ squad played deep into the Super Rugby finals, many of them are flush with success, and they are match hardened. Further, searching for the accuracy and clinical finishing that was missing from the Lions series, coach Steve Hansen put his squad through a useful final tune-up on Friday night in Pukekohe, against Taranaki and Counties.

Whatever lessons the Wallabies may have taken from the Lions’ performance, it is another thing altogether for a side that lacks the Lions’ class, experience and confidence to put them into practice.

In reality, the Lions haven’t done the Wallabies a favour at all; it would have been far preferable for them to have copped 40-point thrashings which potentially might have left the All Blacks without a hard edge.

Instead, the All Blacks arrive in Sydney with the reinstatement of key players like Ben Smith and Ryan Crotty, desperate to reimpose itself as the world’s dominant side.

That cannot be good news for the Wallabies.

In past years, the convention was that Super Rugby results had little correlation with Test rugby. What that theory doesn’t take into account however, is that when the ledger sits at three Australian wins from 53 matches over the last two seasons, and a single Test victory from the last 14 matches against the All Blacks, there is a real psychological barrier that no amount of positive reinforcement and bootcamp training can easily overcome.

Simply put, there are players in this Wallabies team who have no idea how to win against New Zealand. In that respect, it is easy for minds to play tricks and lead to sub-conscious acceptance of an honourable loss and a good personal performance as worthy enough.

Further, there is insufficient depth within the Wallabies squad to maintain pressure on the All Blacks throughout a series, once injuries and rotation ensure changes to the playing side. Sef Fa’agase, Ned Hanigan, Jack Dempsey, Adam Korczyk, Jordan Uelese, Marika Koroibete, Campbell Magnay and others are good players, but they are by no measure star players in Super Rugby who demand inclusion because of consistent, dominant performances over time. They are merely the next players in line.

All of these players use Super Rugby to suggest that they have something to offer at higher level. Reiko Ioane, on the other hand, doesn’t suggest anything; his performances demand selection, pushing a 54-test, 46-tries star player, Julian Savea, out of the All Blacks squad.

(AAP Image/SNPA, David Rowland)

Korczyk put in a couple of decent shifts in Super Rugby and finds himself pulled into the Wallabies squad and written up in newspapers as the next potential saviour.

Meanwhile, what about Matt Todd, with eight Test matches and all of Richie McCaw’s wisdom under his belt, who consistently stands out for the title winning Crusaders? ‘Thanks Matt but we’ll call you if we get any injuries.’

Whatever boost the Wallabies might take from the All Blacks’ drawn series against the Lions must be tempered by realistic analysis of their own form. Italy and Scotland are the two worst-performed sides in recent Six Nations history, yet Australia, playing at home in June, lost to one and only just squeaked home against the other.

The best thing that can happen to lift the pall of gloom that envelops Australian rugby right now is for the Wallabies to somehow do the impossible and conjure a win on Saturday night. In a two-horse race, anything is possible, but there is no logical measure that points to such a result.

Perhaps some will consider that the next best option is a ‘respectable’ loss, but that will only be if that is achieved through spirited effort and skilful play, not by using blatant niggle as a clumsy device to fracture the match and keep the score down, such as happened in Wellington last year.

Perversely, the best outcome for Australian rugby might be a thorough towelling. There is a genuine fear that the events of last Friday are not the low point for Australian rugby that many report it to be, and anything that hastens the arrival at ‘true south’ might, in the long run, be worth the short-term pain.

The prospect of ‘rock bottom’ potentially bringing on a South African-style ‘indaba’, where stakeholders (including a new ARU CEO) would present themselves with good intent and an open mind to reconstruct a model for Australian rugby that ensures all amateur and professional participants are pulling in the same direction, is a subject for another day.

A day that may well be approaching fast, but for now it is fanciful to suggest – as some have done – that the Wallabies’ task has been made easier by the decision to exclude the Force from Super Rugby, because it will somehow draw the players closer together and stiffen their resolve. After all, their grievance is not with the All Blacks.

In the meantime, the best thing that can happen – for everybody’s sake – is for Michael Cheika and the Wallabies to reclaim the back pages with talk about the game.

This will be an unusual week because there will be many who will want to talk about anything but. Cheika will insist that there is no distraction, but there is the prospect that if everyone involved with the Wallabies does not have absolute focus on the match ahead, Australian rugby stands to be ripped to shreds by a ruthless All Blacks side who care nought for all of the domestic wrangling.

If that happens, it will make the events of last Friday look like a school picnic.