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Opinion
In the Seinfeld episode ‘The Opposite’, George Costanza has no job, no girlfriend and is forced into living at home with his parents. Pondering the misery of his life he says, “Every instinct I have ever had has been wrong.”
Jerry replies, “Well if every instinct you had has been wrong, you should do the opposite because it must be right.”
George starts doing the opposite to his instincts and by the end of the episode he has scored a great job with the Yankees, is dating a beautiful woman and is moving out of his parents’ house.
The Wallabies are currently George at the start of the episode.
We are now seventh in the world and have been ranked around this region the last couple of years. To put in perspective how bad our recent performance has been, have a look at the average rankings for each country since the rankings began in 2003:
New Zealand: 1.22
South Africa: 3.04
Australia: 3.64
England: 4.27
Ireland: 5.22
France: 5.61
Wales: 6.38
Argentina: 7.8
Scotland: 8.57
Fiji: 10.91
We are a close third overall to South Africa. And remember these rankings began in 2003 so don’t include Australia’s best period of rugby of the 1990s and early 2000s.
It would be plausible to say that over the past 30 years it would be neck-and-neck between Australia and the Springboks to be the second-best rugby nation overall. In fact, no team in the top ten is currently further away from their long-term average ranking than Australia.
We are well and truly unemployed, undatable and living with our parents.
(Photo by Getty images)
There are many theories on how to fix Australian rugby but an area that I have written many articles about before has actual evidence behind it.
The ruck.
You don’t need any facts or figures to know that in the French series we were dominated at the breakdown and the All Blacks have continued this trend.
In the recent 57-22 thumping, I counted four forced turnovers at the ruck by the All Blacks in general play and another three when Australia had an advantage play (either penalty or knock on). So seven times overall the Kiwis stole our ball.
And guess how many Australia forced? One. Just one pilfer and it came from winger Andrew Kellaway, who has returned from a stint overseas a much-improved player (a common trend).
I had high hopes that Dave Rennie would fix this area but if anything, we may have crept even more backwards. Realistically, we only have Michael Hooper and Brandon Paenga-Amosa in our starting line up who make genuine attempts to get over the ball.
I have never seen Lachie Swinton, Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Allan Alaalatoa, Harry Wilson or Matt Philip even attempt to get over the ball. Taniela Tupou used to be great over the ball but the last two seasons it seems like coaches have told him to forget about the ruck (let alone defence as a whole) and just save himself for his bustling runs.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to blame these players because this is primarily a coaching issue. If Australian coaches don’t realise they either need to coach their current players to compete more at the ruck or just select players who do this naturally, then there is something drastically wrong.
The two best pilferers in Australian rugby, Liam Wright and Fraser McReight, hardly even get a look in nowadays. It would be hard to find any rugby nation in the top ten in the world who would expect so little from their forward pack in the defensive ruck as the Wallabies currently do.
We need to do a Costanza. The opposite. Contest the breakdown hard. Make the All Blacks or whoever we come against fight for every single ball and give halves like Aaron Smith slow, messy ball.
This won’t solely bring us back the Bledisloe but it will make us competitive on the world stage again.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.