This is not Australia. If England are hoping to rely on the stereotypes of yore for victory on Saturday, to continue the relative success they have enjoyed in recent times against their favourite foes from Down Under, they ought to know that the Wallabies are not behaving normally in the build-up to this one.
They are coming over all modest and diplomatic, making a big point of not making any points, not a single barb or jibe, grateful to be here, focusing on themselves. They are being quiet. Unnervingly so.
It is enough to make you yearn for Campo. Eddie Jones would never have stood for such tight-lipped anaemia. Unless, of course, he were cooking something up. Michael Cheika, Australia’s coach, not even a year into the job but already a piece of major silverware to the good, is from the Jones school of coaches – intelligent, cosmopolitan, feisty – but he was a model of decorum after Australia’s win over Uruguay on Sunday. He spoke as quickly and fluently as ever. And said precisely nothing.
“I’m new to all this, mate” was his line.
At least he let us know that Wycliff Palu had a concerning hamstring injury and that Will Skelton had taken a blow to a shoulder in said match. When Haydn Masters, Australia’s strength-and-conditioning coach, was put up before the media on the Birmingham University campus the next day, he seemed reluctant to give us even that.
“We’ve got some injuries that we’ll be having scanned this afternoon. We’ll know the extent of them in 24 hours.”
Pause.
“Is Wycliff Palu the main concern?”
“Yeah, Wycliff Palu’s one of those players.”
“And Will Skelton?”
“Yeah, he’s another one. So they’re the two players. They’re being scanned this afternoon. We’ll go through our processes, then we can let you guys know what’s going on.”
If what they are telling us is reflective of the truth, the Wallabies are spending an awful lot of time on their “processes”, their “systems”.
They did allow us into Birmingham University’s indoor swimming pool to watch the players go through their recovery systems in Wallabies Speedos. There was David Pocock in all his glory, plunging from ice bath into swimming pool. So too Matt Giteau, Adam Ashley-Cooper, Rob Horne, Scott Fardy. They are all magnificent specimens, of course, but as a metaphor for how much Australia intend to reveal this week it left something to be desired.
We were told that Pocock and Michael Hooper would be put up for the team announcement on Thursday, which amounted to an admission that the policy of selecting the two opensides in the same back row is set to continue. Ben McCalman, who was the player put up on Monday does not know the team for Saturday, so he could not comment on that – and, anyway, they were still processing Uruguay, so they were not even thinking about England yet – but it is a selection that is set to rekindle the debate about England’s back row.
Their current policy is to play without any traditional openside at all. If Pocock and Hooper can sink their teeth into the game, sweeping in undercover to disrupt England’s possession in just the kind of cloak-and-dagger operation that Australia’s dealings with the media have become, England will struggle to find an answer, still less to the more flamboyant threats of Giteau and Israel Folau such an edge would likely spark.
When it comes to England-Australia, focus – certainly if the English have anything to do with it – will eventually settle on the scrum. Australia will spend the rest of the week preparing at Dulwich College, a poignant choice given that it is the alma mater of Andrew Sheridan, so often Australia’s nemesis in the recent past. But here is another concern for the host country. Australia have been working with Mario Ledesma, a former Argentina front-row – in other words, a scrum obsessive. There are already signs, even from the outside, that they are benefiting. Those in the camp do not like to talk about it, obviously, but McCalman offered us a few words on Ledesma’s influence.
“He’s a very passionate guy,” he said, “which does rub off on the players. He’s turned the scrum into the responsibility of the whole eight, not just the front-rows.”
It is as close any of the Australians have come in the past couple of days to engaging with the huge elephant in the room. They will not discuss Saturday. Nor will they discuss England’s defeat to Wales. Apparently, they did not even watch it. Joe Tomane said after the Uruguay game, which kicked off at the unusual time of midday, that they were all in bed, aligning their body clocks for the next day’s early kick-off.
That seemed like a convenient ruse by Tomane to avoid the matter that will not be discussed, but McCalman read from the same hymn sheet the next day, practically word for word.
“So, Ben,” the desperate cry goes up. “You’re trailing this Saturday by three points with two minutes to go and the ref awards you a penalty up against the touchline. What do you do?”
McCalman fixes us with a twinkle in his eye as he weighs up his answer. “Dunno, mate,” comes the reply eventually. “I’m not the captain.”
His face is practically bursting with the internal fires of a suppressed personality. Still he holds our gaze – and that personality in check. You know he wants to say something, but he will not. You know he has a personality. He’s an Aussie. Of course, he has one. They all do – and it’s big and bristling and being ruthlessly contained.
England’s problem is how to deal with it when it is finally – and very suddenly – unleashed. Which will be at precisely 8pm on Saturday.
