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C’mon, guys; Australia weren’t so bad against Italy

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22nd November, 2018
24

Reading Roar articles and other media after last week’s Australia vs Italy match I gained the impression that the Wallabies played very unconvincingly – the glass was half empty, not half full.

It sounded as though the defence had been solid but the attack very ordinary, apart from Samu Kerevi.

Spiro Zavos thought Italy frequently outplayed the Wallabies for long periods of time and that the backs played like headless chooks, a view echoed by Jamie Pandaram and Wayne Smith in the Australian.

I thought it would therefore be interesting to watch the replay in forensic mode, breaking down each passage of play to note when either team made a significant gain in territory or caused a turnover and when they made significant errors. I know – get a life! But it can be instructive to look at the evidence in detail rather than go with impressions made on the spur of the moment at the end of the game.

Had the sports writers been fair to the Aussies, or had preconceptions about the faults of the team conceivably affected the picture they painted?

The results for me were quite different from the thrust of commentary. Australia and the backs in particular made numerous line breaks. Italy, by contrast, made hardly any breaks and hardly ever got over the gain line. Australia was quite dominant apart from the moment just before Scott Sio got sent off and then for a few scrums after that.

The evidence? From kick-off until just after the 50th minute I recorded 16 separate occasions on which the Australian backs made five metres or more – usually more – or gained a penalty because a player was held without the ball or an Italian deliberately knocked on to spoil an overlap. It seems quite unfair to accuse them of going mindlessly sideways when they were regularly gaining substantial ground.

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In between, the forwards’ runs regularly made a couple of metres over the gain line, drawing in the Italians.

By contrast, I counted only four breaks the Italians made in the entire game, the most notable being Jayden ‘Giuseppe’ Heyward’s break in the sixth minute, which almost led to a try to Braam ‘Benito’ Steyn in the corner. I didn’t count halfback Tito Tibaldi’s intercept – unfairly ruled offside – or the Italians’ only try, which was just a bit of scavenging from a loose Bernard Foley pass.

There wasn’t much Australian forward momentum between the 50th and 70th minutes due to a couple of bad errors culminating in Sio’s yellow card followed by some bad scrums when Jermaine Ainsley took over. However, apart from one break in the 63rd minute after Marika Koroibete missed a couple of tackles, the Italians hardly offered a serious threat in that period. After Sio came back on, Australia got back on the front foot, made three or four breaks and scored the final try.

So who or what were the main culprits in terms of Australian errors and turnovers?

Michael Hooper addresses a Wallabies huddle

(Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

Handling
Israel Folau tried two unnecessary miracle passes at the end of backline breaks and dropped two balls. Foley and Michael Hooper also made a couple of bad passes each and Adam Coleman, Will Genia and Jakes Gordon were guilty of fumbling.

Four scrum penalties
Although your guess is as good as mine whether they were really merited.

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Giving away penalties or turning the ball over in the ruck seven times
Coleman and Jack Dempsey twice each, plus Izack Rodda, Tatafu Polota-Nau and Gordon once apiece, though not always entirely their fault.

Indifferent kicks
For example, one into touch on the full by Matt Toomua, and Foley and Samu Kerevi kicking grubbers straight into the legs of opponents.

What about Toomua at No.10? I counted that of the 16 backline breaks mentioned above, Toomua had a pass in 14 of them, usually as first receiver. While sometimes he only shuffled the ball on, in several moves he threw passes that were incisive and instrumental in creating space. He never threw a bad pass nor did he fumble.

Looking at the replay, it was hard to agree with Spiro’s assessment that Toomua mostly stood deep, often 10 metres behind the gain line. Most of the time he took the ball five metres back and often quite flat. However, Toomua rarely attacked the gain line, as Spiro noted – but did he really need to so when the other backs and forwards were making so many yards? In the kicking department Toomua was very solid apart from the two errors mentioned above.

Matt Toomua

(Dan Mullan/Getty Images)

Hooper would be one candidate for best on field, winning two ruck turnovers and killing a maul and tackling tirelessly, flying out of the line and knocking the Italians back five metres a few times. But Simon Poidevin’s claim that all the other forwards should have been ashamed of themselves is ridiculous – Rodda with his lineout work, strong hit-ups and defence was at least as valuable as Hooper, and as always David Pocock was a strong contributor until he came off, with lots of effective hit-ups and tackles and a couple of turnovers. In the backs I’d put Kerevi and Toomua ahead of Adam Ashley-Cooper.

At the end of the tape it seemed the Australian performance deserved a glass-half-full rating. Both defence and attack were solid. The main problems were scrum, ruck discipline and handling – obviously a huge contrast to teams like Ireland.

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There was evidence to support Brett McKay’s suggestion that a 10-12-13 of Toomua-Kerevi-Ashley-Cooper could work. That doesn’t mean there aren’t deeper problems or that we should optimistic about the England game.

The exercise illustrated to me that some judgements made after watching a game non-stop don’t always hold water when you go back and break things down play by play. All of us can be prone to confirmation bias. In this case, the ruling narrative that Australia is playing poorly and being coached badly and that the backs are a mess may have led people to overlook some of the good bits.

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