For all the talk of Wallabies coach Michael Cheika being some kind of mad scientist prepared to gamble big with selections, his 31-man Rugby World Cup squad named on Thursday is one based on the proven logic that experience counts most in lifting the William Webb Ellis trophy.
Cheika’s squad hits the key metrics that have mattered most at the World Cup to date – average age and number of Test caps. The 2015 World Cup Wallabies boast a combined 1236 caps, with an average playing age of 27 years. The average team age of the last four World Cup winners was 27 (Australia, 1999), 28 (England, 2003), 27 (South Africa, 2007) and 28 (New Zealand, 2011). Of that group, the All Blacks held the most caps with 709, followed by South Africa with 668, England 638, and the 1999 Wallabies with 622. The trend is clear: experience matters.
The All Blacks, who will name their squad on Sunday, had 1238 Test caps in their match day 23 for the Bledisloe Cup decider – 946 in the starting side and 292 on the bench. That team’s average age was 27. And it’s safe to assume the All Blacks will again field the most experienced squad for the 2015 tournament, with the Wallabies not too far behind in second.
Should Cheika’s men fail it won’t be for want of experience.
That experience is evenly distributed too – 628 caps in the forwards, and 608 in the backs. And there are nine players aged 30 or over – captain Stephen Moore, Totafu Polota-Nau, Greg Holmes, Dean Mumm, Scott Fardy, Wycliff Palu (the oldest at 33), Matt Giteau, Adam Ashley-Cooper, and Drew Mitchell. Remarkably for a squad with so many players over 30, the Wallabies can also boast 13 players who will play at a World Cup for the first time. So 13 World Cup debutants and 18 experienced campaigners; not a bad mix at all of youth and experience.
The talking point omissions are half-back Nic White and James Horwill.
On first glance, White’s exclusion looks harsh. He was superb off the bench against the All Blacks in Sydney, while Will Genia - Cheika’s preferred back-up to first choice no. 9 Nick Phipps – only played 40 minutes in the Rugby Championship before pulling up injured. However, looking at the age and experience selection factor it’s clear the Brumbies half-back was in trouble. White is 25-years-old, Phipps 26. They have played 53 Tests between them. Neither has played in a World Cup. Genia, 27, has 59 caps and played in the 2011 tournament.
It didn’t help White’s case that Genia’s long-time fly-half partner at the Reds, Quade Cooper, had been picked as one of two specialist 10s. The other fly-half, Bernard Foley, has only played 17 Tests, and has never been to a World Cup. Crucially, his halves partner at the Waratahs is Phipps. The final blow for White was the must-have inclusion of the vastly experienced Matt Giteau (95 caps) who can, albeit reluctantly, play half-back should the need to arise. Overall, Cheika has arguably made the right call with White even though it’s a harsh one when solely viewed on a player for player basis. White and Phipps together couldn’t work. Genia’s experience was always going to be needed as a bulwark against a younger, less experienced player losing his way.
Horwill’s omission is harder to process. The 30-year-old lock impressed during the Rugby Championship and looked very much revitalised after a demoralising season with the Reds. He captained the Wallabies at the 2011 World Cup, and with 61 caps certainly fits the experience-based selection paradigm, which has proved successful for previous World Cup winners. Cheika has picked four specialist locks – one of them, Kane Douglas, having only recently returned from Ireland with question marks over his form, and the other, Will Skelton, still very much a greenhorn at Test level. Douglas and Skelton have played just 26 Tests between them. And there’s a real fear Skelton’s inexperience could be brutally exposed by streetwise Irish and Welsh forwards. The Fijians, too, could rattle him physically. One suspects Skelton’s World Cup is 2019. He’s too raw for 2015. Horwill would have been a safer bet. He should be in the squad.
Horwill’s the only quibble though. In all other respects, Cheika couldn’t have named a better squad with the talent available. Quade Cooper, no doubt, will continue to have his detractors. But the question, as always, is there anyone better who should have been selected instead? The answer is a resounding no. It will be interesting to see how Cheika uses his squad. He has, in effect, chosen two playing teams. Does that mean we will see a ‘dirty dirties’ side separated from the herd early in the tournament? And, if that happens, what effect would it have on the players, especially when key positions and combinations - the half-back/fly-half pairing, the loose forwards (Hooper or Pocock, or both?) – are far from settled. Indeed, Cheika might have played it by the numbers with his squad choices, but what he does now is anyone’s guess.
