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Wallabies win at last, but the breakdown is still an issue

17th September, 2017
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It's not the Wallabies people mind, it's the inconsistency. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
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17th September, 2017
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The Wallabies have broken their win-less drought, if you can call a three-game streak – including two against the All Blacks – a drought, with a 25-point win over the Pumas in Canberra.

Not since 1999-2000 have the Wallabies scored more than 23 points in five consecutive internationals, and the win in the nation’s capital was the largest since the 2015 World Cup (65-3 versus Uruguay).

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The Wallabies can enjoy those statistics, they’ve earned them, but the ‘eye-test’ still tells us there is a lot of room for improvement.

Saturday evening felt a lot like a throwback to the bad old days of Super Rugby earlier this year, with a New Zealand side putting on a clinic of expansive, highly-skilled rugby in the 5:30pm kick off, which was followed up by an Australian team stumbling and fumbling their way around the park in the prime-time game.

In the first half, the Wallabies were faced with the standard issues at the breakdown, looking decidedly lightweight at the tackle contest and lacking in the skills execution department.

As far as the skills execution is concerned, some credit should be given to the Wallabies for the fact that they are trying to be more proactive with ball in hand, but quite often it still leads to dropped balls from forced passes.

Almost as if to act as the unwilling poster boy for the lack of presence at the breakdown and shortcomings in skills, Ned Hannigan’s first-half consisted of being routinely smashed out the tackle contest and twice dropping the ball when trying to take an offload from a teammate .

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Hannigan may yet go on to become a terrific player at international level, he exhibits a terrific work rate and a willingness to throw himself into contact. However at present he has been exposed as far too lightweight to have any sort of significant impact in his role.

Ned Hanigan Australia Rugby Union Wallabies 2017

Ned Hanigan (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

Much has been made of the farce that is the current contract situation involving David Pocock, but at some point somebody at the ARU has to ask – why are we paying one of the world’s best at the breakdown a huge amount of money to watch on television while simultaneously getting destroyed at the breakdown time and again?

Coach Michael Cheika spoke about how the team were lacking urgency in the first half – before admitting that he wasn’t sure why, consider that the players were playing for their country. Obviously it’s not as simple as requiring a more Churchillian address from the coach before kick-off – but it’s something that Cheika and his staff will be analysing ahead of the trip to Bloemfontein and a rematch against a Springboks side who were roundly thrashed by the All Blacks earlier in the evening.

Fly-half Bernard Foley was named the official man of the match, which says a lot about the Wallabies’ performance in Canberra. Foley had a good game – did his job and kicked his goals, but his performance was realistically that of a facilitator – he passed and kicked when he needed to, but didn’t do anything which really caught the eye.

Cheika will probably take some solace from that, it was a performance of multiple contributors, and for once his side did not need to rely on the talent of Kurtley Beale or the athletic ability of Israel Folau to swing the game in his side’s favour.

Kurtley Beale Australia Rugby Union Championship Wallabies Bledisloe Cup 2017

Kurtley Beale (Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

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The positives far outweighed the negatives in Canberra – as they should in any 25-point victory – and so the Wallabies can at least pause for breath after an August/September period which would have proved as draining mentally and emotionally as much as physically, given the scrutiny surrounding the team’s poor results.

However the Wallabies should be careful not to get carried away after this result. It was a convincing win in the end, but let’s not forget that this is a jaded Pumas side, on the back end of a physically exhausting South Africa – New Zealand – Australia road trip, and the second half showed how little gas they had left in the tank.

The Wallabies can enjoy the spoils for a second half performance which put the tired Pumas away, but the real Test of where this team currently sits will come over the next few weeks when they take their skills on tour to Africa and South America.

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