- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Will Skelton is back in the Wallabies camp but it would be a harsh call for either of the locks who played against Scotland to make way for the Test against France.
The Wallabies’ defensive lineout work was the facet of the win over Scotland that impressed me the most.
Cadeyrn Neville and Nick Frost were excellent, not only in the lineout but around the field, especially in the defensive breakdown.
Those guys put a hell of a lot of pressure on the Scottish breakdown. They were physical and they brought a lot of energy in an area where many games are decided.
Will joins Harry Jones and Brett McKay for a passing masterclass on this week’s edition of The Roar Rugby Podcast
Nick Frost just looks like a Test match player and thank goodness Dan McKellar was able to talk him down from leaving for Japan.
You get some guys who are excellent Super Rugby players but can’t transfer that to the top level. Then you’ve got some guys who don’t really stand out too much at Super level but then excel at the Test level.
I didn’t watch a lot of him play for the Brumbies, but he stands out on the field when he’s playing Test footy. He’s good at his core roles, got a bit of grunt about him as well as physicality and presence on the field and he’s athletic as well.
Neville played extremely well too and it would be a hard one not to stick with those two boys.
Will Skelton has been excellent in Europe for the past five years. He’s been a big part of the success of Saracens and now La Rochelle.
He brings a particular type of game – he’s big, physical and he’s an absolute bully on the field.
I wouldn’t be alone in thinking we haven’t seen that translate into Test match rugby for the Wallabies as yet. His impact in Test footy hasn’t reached the impact he’s made at club level.
The Wallabies will be tempted to bring him straight in because the French pack is going to bring a hell of a lot of grunt, edge and physical presence.
But it isn’t easy for a player to come into a camp for just three Tests.
Test match rugby is the pinnacle. It’s faster, with less room for error. It’s more intense. The pace of the game picks up and you’re playing against the best of the best, so the guys who are in camp all season long are training at that intensity every single day.
Will Skelton. (Photo by Mattia Ozbot/Getty Images for Barbarians)
They’re battle-hardened and ready for it. Will has to pick up the physical and conditioning side of it, but just as demanding will be getting up to pace with the knowledge.
We can all see what a physical specimen he is. Hopefully, he can get up to speed quickly on the detail and they can get the work into him where he’s in condition to be able to perform consistently at Test level.
As a second rower he has to learn all the line out calls, how they want to scrummage and their calls there, and how they like to maul. There are a lot of intricacies around that space. Binds might be different, and calls and timing will be different – when to hit and when to engage.
Then there is the general game plan, and I know from talking to some of the boys who play in that team under Dave Rennie that he goes with a lot of detail.
It’s very structured rugby where players need to know where to be at all moments. It’s about understanding your role, and then putting that into practice over a training week. And then showing the coaches you can execute it under Test match pressure and fatigue in big moments when it counts.
It is a big ask to come in and learn everything for three Test matches. And there’s the added pressure that you are one of the overseas picks.
Under those circumstances, I can understand why Will isn’t able to show his absolute best in his brief Test involvements.
Where Tate needs to improve
Nic White finds himself in an interesting position after the Wallabies got good value from his rotation to the bench and Tate McDermott’s call up to start.
I think Whitey has played well both as a starter and off the bench, while Tate and Jake Gordon haven’t brought the impact needed when coming on later in games. It might just be that the balance works better to have Whitey as a finisher because he’s proven to be the best option in that role.
That dropout to ice the game is a perfect example. It was such smart footy and I don’t think people understand how hard it is to execute something like that under all that pressure. If he gets that wrong, and kicks it out on the full, it’s Scotland’s ball and they get another opportunity.
Overall, I thought Tate played well and did his job. He had that nice little break early on that put the defence on their toes knowing he could take advantage of any weak spots.
(Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)
But I’d like to see him trust his core skills more particularly around his passing.
His kicking has come a long way and he’s clearly done a lot of work on that.
But I think his left-to-right pass technique is a concern still. He looks like he’s throwing and hoping sometimes.
Other than that, he moved to the breakdowns quickly and was a constant threat in and around the ruck. He worked really hard defensively to make sure that he was the last line of defence as a covering halfback.
Whether he starts again or gets rotated out this weekend, Tate can learn a lot from watching France’s No.9 Antoine Dupont.
In my view, France are the best team in the world at the moment and Dupont is the best player. There’s no other player who impacts winning more than he does at the moment.
He touches the ball the most because he’s a halfback, but all his touches are quality. He’s got excellent core skills with his passing, kicking and his support lines. And he’s always getting second or third touches and always creating try-scoring opportunities. You very rarely watch a Test match where his name isn’t mentioned two or three times in each play.
He’s got a big engine, but above all the quality he shares with all great players is his anticipation. He can read the play unfolding before it happens.
As of now, it’s hard to see weaknesses in his game because he’s been so consistently excellent for the last two or three years. He’s also fortunate that he’s behind a pack that’s just dominating physically. As a halfback, you love to play with a big forward pack. If you’re going forward or have parity you have time and space to do what you want and make decisions.
While their forward pack has size and physicality, they pack a lot of firepower in the backs as well.
It’s going to be a tough one for us in Paris. While I mentioned earlier we were impressive in the defensive breakdown, I feel we still need a lot of work around our attacking breakdown.
There were some promising attacking raids against Scotland, particularly in that first half, but too often we’re losing the ball at the breakdown by giving away penalties, or there’s scrappy and poor placement and the ball is rolling out the side.
My experience of playing against northern hemisphere teams is they target the breakdown a lot, putting pressure in that space, and do it very well.
If we can tidy up that part of our game, we’ll certainly give ourselves a real shot against the French.