ANALYSIS: Glimmer of hope despite Reds rout, and the player who can end Australia's huge Mack Hansen regret

It has been another mixed week for Australian rugby. The remaining two fixtures in Dave Rennie’s Wallaby coaching set-up, Dan McKellar and Petrus Du Plessis have finally joined Lord Laurie Fisher in exile.

For the time being, Eddie Jones has found only Berrick Barnes, rookie defence coach Brett Hodgson and the remote promise of a Scott Wisemantel consultancy by way of compensation. It s like a thin lick of paint where far more extensive repair work is needed.

The curly optimism of a brand-new Super Rugby Pacific season was sharply sheared by another heavy loss in the only Trans-Tasman fixture from round one, the game between the Reds and the Hurricanes at the Queensland Country Bank Stadium.

Jones had stressed how important the cross-border matches were going to be in 2023 Wallaby selection process:

“The games against the Crusaders, or whoever the strongest New Zealand side is, they are the important selection games.

“That’s where you’ll see [the best] from the players.

“The expectation is they play well and consistently play well.”

One the Reds’ players who had spent the last NPC season in Auckland colours, second/back row ‘tweener’ Connor Vest, had previously suggested that Queensland intended to blot out the white noise of Trans-Tasman opposition by doing the rugby equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears, and singing la-la-la:

“We are doing a lot of work at the moment on resilience, and not thinking that the New Zealand teams are better.

“We are just thinking that it is just another rugby team, a team of white jerseys so to speak.

“Week-in and week-out, it doesn’t matter who you are playing. We are going to go out there and play our style of footy, our brand of footy. It is just another team.”

But later in the same interview, Vest found himself quite unable to disguise his admiration for the Kiwi game, and the sound level rose back up again:

“It was something I dreamt of playing when I was a young kid. I got over there expecting a lot, and got so much more than I expected.

“The way they play the game is so quick. The way they train is something my body was not used to. Just learning, the continuous flow of the game. It is the reason why the All Blacks have been number one for so long.”

Something similar occurred in a humid Townsville on Saturday evening, with the Reds’ early resilience evaporating in a sea of second half scoring by the ‘Canes. The Maroons conceded 31 unanswered points to go down by 13 points to 47. In that second period they could do little but stand back and applaud the play of their opponents, even when the North Islanders had one man less on the field.

Thankfully, there were some glimmers of light from a Wallaby point of view. Queensland’s sing-song in their resilient, competitive period coincided mostly with full-back Jordie Petaia’s presence on the field. The Queensland prodigy looked sharp in the dirty work of number 15 play: kicking shrewdly, defending well and playing accurately in contact.

Add in Filipo Daugunu’s passable impersonation of Frenchman Gabin Villière with three breakdown turnovers from the left wing, and that declining North Queensland sun was shining from the back three.

The same was true in the very first all-Australian encounter of the new season, in which the Brumbies edged out the Waratahs at the Sydney Football Stadium. Perhaps surprisingly, it was the Brumbies who came out on top in their mini-battle against higher-profile opponents, with the combination of Tom Wright at full-back, and wings Corey Toole and Andy Muirhead overshadowing the highly-touted New South Wales trio of Mark Nawaqanitawase, Ben Donaldson and Max Jorgensen.

The Brumbies back three boasted 228 total running metres and a colossal 15 clean breaks or tackle busts between them, with Wright enjoying the most touches (17) outside the halves on both sides. The return of Stephen Larkham to his home province already seems to be bearing fruit and the men from Canberra are a more balanced outfit than they were one year ago.

The key was Tom Wright’s presence outside the main play-maker, Jack Debreczeni in the first half, and Noah Lolesio for most of the second. As suggested in last week’s article, modern auxiliary playmaking comes best from number 15 and Wright’s influence in that role was felt as early as the 7^th minute of the match:

With Debreczeni split to the far side of the ruck, Wright enters play at first receiver on the short-side to create a try for his scrum-half Ryan Lonergan. The defence by the two Waratahs’ second rows closest to the first back (Jed Holloway and Taleni Seu) is simply too slow to respond, leaving Wright in a one-on-one with Tane Edmed.

Wright was the key to connecting the two Canberra wingmen profitably on attack, just as he was for the Wallabies in November. A two-phase package from a lineout featuring a midfield rumble by Bobby Valetini, followed by all of the back three rolling to the open-side on second, promised much in the first period:

Promise was converted into a full seven pointer after half-time:

It is basically the same move, with the blind-side wing swinging around late to link with the rest of the back three after a big midfield run by Valetini. The idea is to overload the key defender, the Tahs’ number 12 Lalakai Foketi:

Foketi has to account for both the holding run of Tamati Tua and the threat of Muirhead sweeping around behind him, and he is held in for just long enough for Muirhead to turn the corner on the outside.

The Brumbies outside backs looked revitalised by the presence of a new man in charge. Instead of confining himself largely to kick-chase duties and rooting for the ball at the breakdown, Muirhead was freer to express his attacking desires, even if he took time to become aware of the possibilities while exchanging thoughts with the Assistant Referee:

The 2022 Brumbies would probably not have entertained that cross-kick option, but Ryan Lonergan embraces the risk and it is duly rewarded after the Brumbies’ right wing emerges from his touch-line huddle!

The two players who benefited most from the increased use of Wright as an extra distributor from the Wallaby perspective were undoubtedly Len Ikitau at outside centre, and the new Sevens’ acquisition on the left wing, Corey Toole. Ikitau was largely restricted to defensive duty with the 2022 Wallabies but there were glimpses of his offensive mojo resurfacing at the Sydney Football Stadium:

Lenny is able to profit from the presence of both Debreczeni and Wright inside him, and run to the outside before engaging both Edmed and the last defender to release Toole for a side-line gallop with a back-of-the-hand offload.

A very similar picture was painted after half-time:

Most the column inches after the event may have fêted Peter Jorgensen’s son Max on the Waratahs left wing, but it ex-Sevens star Toole who looked closer to the oven-ready product for Test rugby on the day.

At only 1.78m and 85 kilos, Toole is one of the new breed of small backs who play very big indeed. He has been a beneficiary of RA’s alignment of its national Sevens program with Super Rugby – the Brumbies allowed him to leave the club on loan in order to play in the 2021-22 World Sevens Series.

Toole has sustainable speed, but he also has the toughness and attention to the ‘dirty work’ detail necessary for a modern wing:

That is Toole on kick-off regather. Height is not a problem if you have the desire, and the tools for the job. With a little more coaching insistence and refinement, Toole could yet morph into the second coming of Mack Hansen for Australian rugby.

With Stephen Larkham back in harness in Canberra, the Brumbies backs look better prepared to realise a wider range of attacking options in 2023:

Ikitau is sneaky-smart on defence, picking the perfect line to block the path of the second line runner (Lalakai Foketi) while blindsiding the first (Charlie Gamble) to create a fumble and counter-attack opportunity:

After that, it is all about Muirhead and Wright, with Wright pulling the strings in the narrow attacking space down the 5m corridor.

Speaking of manipulating the space in the wide channels, if Eddie Jones wants the most natural replacement for Ikitau at outside centre, he could do a lot worse than call upon the services of Foketi. Foketi may play with the number 12 on his back, but he plays with the instinctive understanding of a 13 when it comes to preserving room for the men outside him:

In both cases, Foketi dips in and narrows the D before passing back out for the score to be completed. That kind of exquisite feeling for the balance between congestion and space is exactly what the Wallabies need in a World Cup year.

Summary

There were both pluses and minuses for Jones on the first weekend of his return to Super Rugby. Despite all of the special preparation and the protestations about singing from a new hymn-sheet in 2023, the Queensland Reds looked no closer to exorcising their devils from across the Tasman.

Their Thor-less scrum conceded five penalties or turnovers and they gave up a flood of kick or turnover return opportunities to their ravenous Wellingtonian opposition in the second period, even when the Hurricanes went down to 14 men. It was Queensland’s 12^th loss on the bounce to Kiwi opposition and that remains a real road-block, mentally and physically for Brad Thorn’s charges.

Only Petaia and Daugunu really emerged in credit from the game in Townsville, and the back three is the area where the biggest gains were made for Australian rugby on the first weekend of the Super Rugby Pacific season.

At the Sydney Football Stadium, the Brumbies showed they were ready to step up their game and expand their range of attacking possibilities against the Waratahs. Wright came into his own as a support receiver to either Lolesio or Debreczeni, and the attacking interest of Ikitau and Muirhead was rekindled. Australian rugby may just have found a new star good enough to make it forget all about the loss of Hansen, in the form of Sevens expert Toole.

The good news did not end there, with Foketi demonstrating a range of skills good enough to qualify him for both the number 12 and the number 13 jersey in green-and-gold. On the left wing, young Max Jorgensen may yet challenge Toole for the Rookie of the Year title. Promises, promises. Now, if only Australian rugby could get to grips with those dastardly Kiwis…