The Waratahs’ win over the Highlanders at Sydney two weekends ago stopped a sequence of 40 consecutive Super Rugby victories by New Zealand teams over their Australian counterparts.

But the loss to the Chiefs at Hamilton on Saturday night entrenched another curse, 31 successive losses by Australian Super Rugby teams in NZ.

This run of home victories by the New Zealand Super Rugby teams stretches back to 2015.

For the Waratahs, the loss meant that they have now won only one of their last 11 overseas games.

I don’t see how the Waratahs can hope to be a championship-winning side if they maintain this very poor record.

Of course, the beauty of having a tournament like Super Rugby with its strong overseas component is that teams like the Waratahs and the other Australian sides have regular chances of getting up for a win.

Next weekend, for instance, both these New Zealand run of victories over Australian sides could be stopped in their tracks when the Rebels, impressive in their 40-13 victory (six tries to two) in Melbourne over the Sunwolves, play the embattled Blues in Auckland.

A significant qualification to the Rebels’ win must be the admission that the Sunwolves were resting a number of senior players to allow them to prepare for Tests to be played in the coming weeks.

Even more impressive was the 38-28 victory by the Brumbies over the Bulls at Pretoria.

Any win in South Africa by visiting teams deserves the highest praise. In the history of the Super Rugby competition, the Crusaders are the only overseas side that has more wins (just) than losses in South Africa.

The Brumbies lost their hooker with about 20 minutes of play left while they were behind on the scoreboard. Remember, too, Pretoria is on the highveld. But incredibly it was the Brumbies and not the Bulls who stormed into the lead with two outstanding tries.

The hero for the Brumbies was fullback Tom Banks, who played an absolute blinder in defence and attack.

Michael Cheika would be guilty of selectorial incompetence if Banks is not selected at fullback for the Wallabies. He is the nearest current Australian equivalent to the stroppy, aggressive, leg-pumping running of Chris Latham, of blessed memory, since that great player retired.

Banks was brilliant in his scrambling defence and then his sensational breakout bursts that turned a match the Brumbies were (inevitably) going to lose into a glorious victory.

I know that a couple of weeks ago I was arguing for Kurtley Beale to play fullback for the Wallabies. But that case was made, essentially, to prise Israel Folau out of the fullback position.

Making a case for Beale at fullback, at that time of writing, looked like the only way Michael Cheika could be convinced to take the decision to move Folau from the position his wife, probably Folau himself and certainly Cheika has deemed to be where he should play for the Wallabies.

Two developments over the weekend should alert Cheika to the foolishness of being adamant about Folau at fullback.

First was the play of Tom Banks’ Latham-like running to turn defence into attacks leading to tries that has marked his play to the point where even Latham himself would be impressed by his latter-day clone.

Second was the way that the Chiefs, especially through Damian McKenzie by his long-ball kicking, exposed Folau’s all-to-obvious weaknesses in reading the play and positioning himself to respond appropriately when he is at fullback.

A few weeks ago the Crusaders tried to nullify Folau’s running game by kicking bombs to him. The tactic backfired spectacularly with Folau catching the bombs and hurtling through the defence with his massive strides to set up attacks that culminated in a 29–0 lead.

The Chiefs also kicked to Folau, or to where he should have been. These kicks were not bombs. They were long, skidding, probing kicks deep to the corners to test Folau’s positional play.

Folau was found wanting virtually throughout the game.

Here is the clinching point to my argument. This change of tactics towards Folau has come after the All Blacks selectors had gathered their Test squad together for a three-day camp where they were introduced to the 2018 playbook.

Playing Folau at fullback puts him at the mercy of the kicking game of his opponents, especially when playing the All Blacks later on in the year.

But playing him on the wing changes this equation. Folau, the winger, puts the opposition at the mercy of his jump-and-catch game.

He almost won the match for the Waratahs with this jump-and-catch game, first with a sensational snatch from a short kickoff and then an equally sensational snatch in the air from a cross-field kick-pass.

(Photo by Speed Media/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The really devastating aspect of Folau’s aerial skills is that he times his leap so brilliantly that he is instantly able to break away in full stride after making the case.

There is no one in world rugby who can or has been able to do this. It is a weapon, with Folau on the wing, that would give the Wallabies a winning edge against virtually every team in the world.

With Folau terrorising opponents in the air and with the speed of Banks and wingers like Marika Korobeite (three tries against the Sunwolves) or Izaia Perese on the ground, the Wallabies could have the sort of break-out threat they enjoyed in the glory days of David Campese, Chris Latham, Joe Roff and Matt Burke.

The point here is that Michael Cheika needs to re-think his selections of 2017 and 2016 and make significant personnel and positional changes if he wants to match the top tier countries, which now include Ireland, a better team than England were last year when they won their 3-0 Test whitewash in Australia.

(Photo by Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

This gets us to the forward lessons that were learnt by the Waratahs against the Chiefs.

The Chiefs, it needs to be remembered, had come back from South Africa during the week. Despite the fact, too, that they conceded a disastrous 14–0 start to the Waratahs, they ended up scoring a try with time up to give them a bonus point win.

When the team lists were read out before the Chiefs-Waratahs match, it was clear that the home side had the bigger pack, especially in the loose forward area.

The Waratahs, for instance, played Will Miller, 182cm, 88kg, at number 6.

The statistics for Luke Jacobson, the Chiefs number 6, were 189cm, 103kg.

I guess the motivation for playing the smaller and presumably quicker Miller at number 6 was to give the Waratahs an advantage over the ball at rucks.

But what has been clear all this Super Rugby season is that the newish ruck law, which allows only one snatch at the ball by a defender and for the tackler to get behind the ball before he can participate in the ruck, favours the side with the ball.

[latest_videos_strip category=”rugby” name=”Rugby”]

We are seeing far more phase-ball series of play, as the norm, than in past years.

And we are seeing more penalties against players missing the ball in their attempts at a turnover play.

I watched David Pocock’s play, for instance, for the Brumbies against the Bulls. He got a couple of turnovers. He also was penalised a couple of times for getting his timing wrong with his turnover play.

Moreover, he was many times buried in the ruck after a missed turnover play and this created gaps in the defensive line of the Brumbies.

Pocock, too, had nothing to offer running with the ball. The occasional times he did get the chance to run, he merely steadied himself and set up a ruck. This was efficient play. It was not match-winning play along the lines of, say, the bursts made by Liam Squire (likely to oppose Pocock in the Bledisloe Tests) for the Highlanders.

(Photo by Mark Nolan/Getty Images)

And this gets me to the need for Michael Cheika to understand that the day when jackals like David Pocock could win matches by totally dominating the ruck, as he did so famously in the Rugby World Cup 2011 quarter-final against the Springboks, are over.

Number 7s, even if they are playing at number 8 or 6 as Pocock will do when selected in the run-on Wallabies team, have to be more than one-trick ponies.

The All Black selectors, for instance, have not selected Matt Todd in their squad for the June series against France. Ardie Savea, the back-up to Sam Cane, has a more dynamic running and tackling game compared with Todd’s Pocock-like fetching game.

And Shannon Frizell, 195cm and 108kg, has been added to the loose forward squad as a potential starter in a year or so even though he has had only a handful of starts for the Highlanders.

There have been major revisions to the laws regarding the rucks, the high ball contest and the tackle in recent times. New Zealand rugby seems understood better than the other rugby powers the playing and selectorial implications that flow from these revisions.

The Waratahs, at least, have understood that having someone who is very secure and sound in his leaping technique, namely Israel Folau, gives them a great advantage with the new requirement of “zero tolerance of any attacking player who makes contact with a leaping defender.”

But on the ruck law provisions, as we have seen, there does not seem to be an understanding that defender-type loose forwards who is a fetcher rather than a runner are no longer indispensable.

The future belongs to players who are aggressive on defence and running, with mobile, big and skilful loose forwards who are dynamic carrying the ball.

This explains, for instance, why the All Blacks selectors plucked Frizell from the Highlanders squad, after a handful of starts, to be part of the New Zealand loose forward squad for the Tests against France.

Then there is the significant change to the laws in recent years has been to make the current height for a legal tackle in line with the shoulders.

When this change was introduced I made the point that this change would help to create a resurgence of the fast and dynamic smaller player.

The reason for this, I suggested, is that the bigger players, especially towards the end of a match, get too tired to bend at the waist to make their tackles.

Again, the All Blacks selectors have recognised this by selecting Nehe Milner-Skudder ahead of Ben Lam. The Australian equivalent of Milner-Skudder is, in my view, Jack Maddocks.

(Photo by Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images)

Cheika needs to understand that we are seeing far more penalties and cards against head-high tackles than are being gained from turnovers.

This move towards protecting the heads of players has prompted World Rugby to trial a law change in under-20 competitions to lower the height of the tackle to “below the nipple line.” This trial change will come into play at the World Under-20 Championship in France next week.

What I am saying in all of this is that there is a reason why the New Zealand Super Rugby teams are having these long runs of wins against Australian teams.

They are much better coached and selected to play winning rugby in the era where the laws, for the first time in more than 100 years, totally favour the attacking side.

The Australian Super Rugby coaches do not seem to understand this, to me at least, very obvious fact. This is why in the last two years, the New Zealand sides have regularly beaten them, at home and away.

Will Michael Cheika show with his Wallaby squad for 2018, which will be announced on Wednesday, that he understands that the dynamic of winning rugby has changed from defence to attack and pick a squad that reflects this fact?