How the loss of Israel Folau has improved the Wallabies backfield

Controversy follows Israel Folau wherever he goes.

First, it was his refusal to remove anti-homosexual posts from social media, which led ultimately to the cancellation of his playing contract with Rugby Australia.

Now his proposed move back to rugby league has been thrown into doubt. The Tongan National Rugby League had cleared Folau to play in October’s Oceania Cup competition, but the Australian Rugby League Commission (one of the RLIF’s eight constituent nations) are likely to oppose his readmission to the sport.

According to deputy chairman Peter Beattie, the RLIF had never been asked to consider the matter of Folau’s registration:

“The RLIF has made no decision in relation to any registration request for Israel Folau.

“As a current member and deputy chair of the RLIF board, I can assure you that this has never been discussed or mentioned around the board table.”

This follows on from a previous statement by the NRL, in which they indicated that they would not re-register Folau. This would have the effect of not only blocking his return to the sister code, but could result in yet more legal redress. Folau would end up fighting on two fronts in the courts, and against both governing bodies.

The picture is one of continued troubles. Indirectly, it raises the question of whether the Wallabies at the current World Cup are also not better off without Israel Folau on the field, as well as off it.

After all, Folau is associated with Michael Cheika’s version of Australia since 2015, and its underwhelming 50 per cent win ratio. That ranks him dead last among Wallaby coaches in the professional era.

Since the high watermark of the 2015 World Cup, the only Rugby Championship performance with a positive win/loss ratio occurred earlier this year, when Folau was already out of the Wallaby squad.

Sporting dynamics are mostly subterranean, invisible to the outsider. But during his time as a Wallaby, definite features characterised Israel Folau’s identity as a Test match player.

(Paul Kane/Getty Images)

He was an imperious rugby athlete – a deadly finisher in space, and probably the best aerial ball-winner of all time. What Victor Matfield was to the lineout, Folau was to the backfield.

On the other hand, there were areas of his game which did not measurably improve during his union exposure. His kicking game and work in contact were never more than moderate, and his positional play in defence could be suspect. Even when he was an ironclad fixture in the Wallaby side, other players never appeared to look towards him for leadership at critical moments.

The All Blacks seemed to know him better than anyone, on both sides of the ledger. They never challenged him in the air under the high ball, they just waited for him to come back down to earth, and then dispossess him at the ensuing ruck.

That is a neat capsule of Folau’s life in union: a player capable of winning in the most spectacular highlight moments, and then giving it all back in the workaday tasks of the game.

As a consequence, the debate about his best position was never fully unresolved – was he a winger, was he a fullback, or was he a centre?

His presence in the Australian back three caused problems, because both he and his most constant companion, Dane Haylett-Petty, preferred to play in the backfield on defence, rather than on the front line. With the Wallaby selectors looking to fast-track Marika Koroibete into the Test team since 2017, it was left to Koroibete to defend on the line, and it didn’t matter whether that was on the left or the right-hand side of the field.

In two articles at the end of 2018, one in October, the other in November, I assessed the negative impact the constant switching of positions was having on the career progression of wingmen like Jack Maddocks, Sefa Naivalu and Koroibete.

As ex-Wallaby Drew Mitchell put it at the time, “I’d be on the left wing, chasing a kick into the in goal, and then we’d have a 22 (dropout) or a lineout that just dribbles out and I’d have to get back to the right-hand side.

“You expel a lot of your fitness and your cardio just trying to get into position.

“I spoke to Dan Carter after the 2015 Rugby World Cup final and he said ‘mate, we could see the metres you were covering and we were just putting high balls up on you, just knowing you had nothing left’.”

It has become evident since Folau’s departure that a significant portion of the complex ‘musical chairs’ defensive system invented by Nathan Grey was designed to accommodate his individual strengths and weaknesses.

In Folau’s absence, it has been largely abandoned this season. The only time Marika Koroibete is now required to switch over to the right wing is at defensive lineouts – and that particular wrinkle is still as unsuccessful as it always has been in the past.

Against Fiji, a defensive lineout with Koroibete stuck out on the right eventually resulted in a scoring opportunity for the Islanders over on the opposite side of the field:

Koroibete is still on the right, Reece Hodge has picked up his duties out on the left but is late up to the line. As a result, he gets his angles wrong and is brushed off by ‘the Bus’, the blockbusting Josua Tuisova:

There is no easy translation of defensive angles for tackles made on the right shoulder to those on the left, and Hodge pays the ultimate price for his mistake against a ball-carrier as powerful as Tuisova.

The good news is most of Koroibete’s duties are now confined to his natural wing, and that means much greater economy of effort.

At kick-off chases, he stays resolutely on the left rather than moving over to the right:

This, in turn, permits Hodge to pick up Folau’s role as the main chaser of contestable restarts on the other side:

Defensively, Koroibete has also been able evolve his game further by spending more time in the backfield, rather than just on the line:

This is a sensible arrangement, with Haylett-Petty shifting over to the touchline to field the ball, and Koroibete and the other winger (Adam Ashley-Cooper in this case) linking further infield:

Marika drives through the first tackle by Justin Tipuric to set up an ideal first ruck past halfway, and in the middle of the field with all the attacking options open.

Koroibete has also been able to acquire more confidence in the workaday tasks of backfield defence which never appeared to enthuse Folau:

Koroibete drifts back to cover the kick-through by Wales scrumhalf Gareth Davies, then outruns the pursuit before kicking beyond the Welsh backfield to give the platform for an energetic kick-chase.

There are still items to learn on Koroibete’s defensive menu, as the first Welsh try from a cross-kick showed – but at least he is now getting the chance to learn them.

In this instance, he allows Welsh chaser Hadleigh Parkes to get on his outside shoulder and fails to occupy the critical space underneath the ball.

With ball in hand, Australia have looked at their most potent when executing attacks from right to left in 2019, and towards Koroibete’s wing. The tighter the space gets, the more impact the likes of Samu Kerevi, James O’Connor and Koroibete are likely to make, and this is especially true on Wallaby kick-off returns:

Koroibetes’s dynamism, dropping inside on the pick and go, is a very welcome addition to Australia’s arsenal in 2019. Furthermore, he now has the energy to beat Tuisova on the outside around the hour mark – an opportunity he would have been unlikely to grasp with draining demands of ‘musical chairs’ still in place.

One final example:

Matt Toomua breaks down the left, and Koroibete times his switch inside to perfection to set up a quick ruck ball and move Australia to within a couple of metres of the Welsh goal-line. The Wallabies scored shortly afterwards to ignite their second-half comeback.

Summary
Israel Folau’s chequered career in rugby union raises interesting questions about the role of an outstanding individual within an overall team structure.

Folau’s spectacular positive attributes would have demanded his inclusion in any top-tier side in the world, even the All Blacks. At the same time, it is doubtful New Zealand would have made such concessions to his weaknesses.

They would have demanded that Folau recognise, and address his negatives in contact work, kicking and defensive positional play – rather than making any change to their team patterns to accommodate them.

Since Folau’s departure, Australia’s results have improved, and the 2019 Rugby Championship represented their best performance since 2015. The roles of their back three have been simplified, and only the one portion of the defensive lineout structure remains of the ‘musical chairs’ system.

(Photo by David Ramos – World Rugby/World Rugby via Getty Images)

This has benefited Marika Koroibete in particular. Instead of having to shuttle constantly and exhaustingly between wings on both sides, he has been encouraged to stay on the left and learn his backfield duties in a more orthodox rotation. Persistence has led to progress.

At the same time, it appears that nobody is too keen to employ Israel Folau’s outrageous natural talents without more evidence he will stick around, and league looks to be following hot on union’s heels in that respect.

“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer,” as the famous scientist Albert Einstein once said.

For five seasons in union, Israel Folau shone, often brilliantly – a shimmering comet across the evening sky. But he could not “stay with the problems” for longer. That meant he never scaled the heights he might have done, or became a role model either on or off the field. The loss is his, but also ours.