Wallabies coach Michael Cheika’s decision to start both specialist openside flankers David Pocock and Michael Hooper against the All Blacks in the Bledisloe Cup/Rugby Championship Test on Saturday could misfire.
Clearly, picking Pocock at No.8 and Hooper at openside holds latent promise as a ball-thieving Test rugby double act. But is playing the pair against the All Blacks this weekend the right call?
Granted, as is the case with all pre-World Cup matches, coaches are still operating within a narrow margin of trial and error in making selections. The Pocock/Hooper combination could be a worthwhile experiment, but the All Blacks are arguably the wrong opposition to conduct this kind of research. And especially when the Sydney match is a one-off Rugby Championship decider and the home leg of a two-Test Bledisloe Cup series.
It may well be a World Cup year, but these are not insignificant trophies. Would the Wallabies have been better off selecting Wycliff Palu at No.8 and keeping Pocock in his preferred openside position? Time will tell.
No doubt, the Pocock/Hooper selection is a reaction to the Springboks utterly dominating the All Blacks at the breakdown a fortnight ago with two openside flankers, Francois Louw and Heinrich Brussow, in their run-on side.
Perhaps the Wallabies’ Bledisloe I selection has been overly influenced by how the All Blacks fared at the breakdown in that match. However, a closer examination reveals it wasn’t the selection of two openside specialists per se that caused breakdown problems for the Kiwis – it was also the clinical over-the-ball work by Springbok hooker Bismark du Plessis, and to a lesser extent Schalk Burger.
In reality, the Boks unleashed a four-pronged breakdown hit squad, spearheaded by du Plessis. It proved an irresistible force over 80 minutes. Any team but the All Blacks, and the Boks would have won with some to spare.
The key point here is that the Boks used four players over-the-ball, not two – and that makes a world of difference. It’s entirely possible selecting two openside flankers is not the answer it has been made out to be.
Indeed, one suspects a fully fit and rested Palu would have been a bigger threat to the All Blacks. And not to mention, the All Blacks have been expecting a Pocock/Hooper selection ever since their poor showing against the Boks.
In fact, much of their preparation work for Saturday has been around the breakdown and blowing players off the ball before the likes of Hooper and Pocock can get their legs firmly grounded to execute pilfers. Despite continuing on their merry winning ways, the All Blacks remain a ruthlessly self-critical bunch.
What happened in South Africa a fortnight ago won’t be allowed to happen again any time soon. It will also be interesting to see how Wallabies blindside flanker Scott Fardy plays in the re-jigged backrow. He has been one of the Wallabies’ most consistent players for several seasons now. Will he be just as effective playing alongside two opensiders, and in the absence of a strong ball-carrying no 8?
Loose forward dynamics aside, Cheika’s team selection looks close to Australia’s best XV with the players fit and available (Henry Speight would be a welcome starter once his suspension expires). The physicality of locks Dean Mumm and James Horwill will be crucial if the Wallabies are to win, especially in the absence of the ball-carrying Palu.
Pocock is not a ball-carrying forward as such, and Hooper’s most effective carries are in carefully-selected match-ups in the defensive line; while he tests defensive gaps, he rarely bends a fully-set line. The Wallabies will have to pick up the slack elsewhere, especially with hard men blowing the All Blacks off the ball at the breakdown. Unless the Wallabies can impose themselves physically at first contact at the breakdown, the experiment of two opensides could come to nought.
Mumm and Horwill will, at the very least, have to match All Black opposites Brodie Retallick and Luke Romano. Wallabies skipper hooker Stephen Moore, a more than effective ball-carrying runner, will need to put in double time around the park in addition to his scrum and line-out duties. And then there’s Jerome Kaino and Kieran Reid to deal with – not to mention Richie McCaw who could be the main beneficiary if the Pocock/Hooper gamble goes belly up.
Can the Wallabies finally win against the All Blacks?
The question everyone is asking: Are the Wallabies a chance?
They’re as good as they were during last year’s three-Test Bledisloe Cup series in which they drew the first match, got torched in the second, and lost the third by a point. In fact, knowing what we now know about the poor morale in the team under Ewen McKenzie, the Wallabies are definitely in a better head space as a team under Cheika and captain Moore. And the Wallabies certainly have some very talented backs, none more so than Israel Folau.
The problem, though, is the All Blacks are also a better team than they were this time last year. All Blacks coach Steve Hansen and his management team have done a brilliant job in bringing McCaw and Dan Carter slowly to the boil for the pair’s final World Cup. McCaw was devastating against all odds in South Africa, and Carter has been having the odd snip at the line, every so gently bringing his running game up to speed. One senses he has been waiting for the right time and occasion to unleash. Sydney could be his night.
The overall sticking point from the Mendoza Test against the Pumas was an impression of the Wallabies being a side maybe only handful of tactical and skill execution improvements away from being a consistently dangerous team (the scrum woes aside; that will take longer to fix). Goal-kicking is clearly a key area. The Wallabies, unlike the All Blacks, are not a good enough side to leave six to nine points plus on the paddock. And not when when they’re losing Bledisloe Tests by a single point.
Fly-half Bernard Foley simply has to practice more. Goal-kicking is a technical skill – as a professional player, he has no excuse for not having a 75% plus strike rate in internationals.
Re-starts will also be crucial. It was brilliant to see Folau use his Aussie Rules skills in competing for the ball from Wallabies half-way re-starts in Mendoza. This is an area of the game where the All Blacks are superb. It allows them to break the in-built game pattern of the scored against team kicking the ball straight back to the team that just scored, makes exiting difficult for the receiving side, and provides an easy possession gain in prime territory should the All Black chasers and aerial contesters win the ball. If the Wallabies use Folau better in this area, they could destabilise a key pillar in the All Blacks pattern of play. Folau is exceptional in the air.
It’s a no brainer.
Wallabies centre Tevita Kuridrani’s running lines could also do with a tweak. The All Blacks have been singing the big Fijian’s praises all week, but the Wallabies should be wary – it could be the set-up for a mid-field sucker punch. Kuridrani, just 24, is a relative babe in the woods at centre. He runs straight and hard, and can be a handful to put to deck. However, he is still developing subtlety to his game and can’t yet read proceedings in the way, say, Conrad Smith does for the All Blacks.
Kuridrani regularly runs straight along an imaginary tram line 10 or so metres parallel to the touch line. He quite often finds himself isolated from the support. And it’s all too predictable for the All Blacks. Kuridrani will need to show the All Blacks something different – maybe adjusting his running lines slightly infield to get closer to Pocock and Hooper in support, as well as give arriving half-back Nick Phipps a wider blindside to explore and possibly test out All Black debutant winger Nehe Milner-Skudder.
And, of course, there’s the Wallabies’ decidedly average kicking out of hand game. It’ll have to improve markedly to match the All Blacks’ kicking skills – into space and contestable – by the likes of Aaron Smith at half-back, Ben Smith at full-back, and Carter from fly-half.
All Blacks brains trust of Carter and Smiths too much to handle
Our tip? The Wallabies at home in a Bledisloe are mostly tight affairs. They’ll give it another good shake one suspects, but may fall short once again because, all things being equal, the All Blacks still have better decision-makers, especially in the backs.
The Wallabies don’t have a backline general a la Stephen Larkham, or someone in the backs, preferably at fly-half or full-back, who can read the game astutely and instinctively pick up subtle ebbs and flows in the nature of the contest unfolding and accordingly make plays to either ride or ebb the flows to their team’s advantage.
It’s not a selection issue – it’s experience (or the lack thereof in Australia’s case).
Toulon imports Matt Giteau and Drew Mitchell could provide a degree of compensation with all their Test caps, but that would be countered by their absence from the team for several years now. In the tightest of contests, the All Blacks can call on superior backline computers like the Smiths trio (Aaron, Conrad and Ben) and Carter to independently and collectively take in all that is happening before them, communicate quickly and effectively throughout the side, and then execute ruthlessly as a team.
In this respect, it’s why the All Blacks are always a team far, far greater than the sum of its parts. The Wallabies don’t have the same calibre of thinking player in the backline just yet.
