Between 778 and 804 CE, Charlemagne, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and King of the Franks, tried to dislodge another Germanic tribe, the Saxons, from what is now Lower Saxony and Westphalia.
Even though Charlemagne led a numerically superior force, he had to launch 18 sorties over 26 years before he was finally successful.
Because the Saxons had outstanding defence.
At Tours in 732 CE, Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel, defeated a force led by Abn ar-Rahman of the Umayyad Caliphate. 60,000 Saracens, mainly cavalrymen wearing armour or chainmail, were soundly defeated by an army of just 15,000 wearing little more than leather and fabric.
Because Martel came up with an outstanding defence.
So much for the field of battle back then.
Let’s catch a lightbeam to the Rugby World Cup in Japan this September.
The Wallabies shouldn’t have much trouble in their pool against lowly Uruguay or Georgia, who lost to Fiji in the Pacific Nations Cup by 21 points. So let’s say the Wallabies beat Fiji, get close to Wales, and make the quarter-finals.
Is this an outstanding attacking team? Can you add and subtract to the likely XV and get a side with a
brilliant and devastating attack? Probably not. Maybe this is one World Cup where we’re not going to have a team that can score from anywhere. Maybe we’re going to have to do what the Saxons and Martel’s men did – concentrate on defence.
Be super disciplined so as not to give the opposition too many chances from the tee, and organise a wall of gold that frustrates the opposition and forces them into errors.
Tight, unforgiving defence is a tactic that worked in the World Cup 24 years ago. And it was used with great success on another kind of field 1200 years ago.
Some things never change.
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