The last time Australia won the World Cup was in the old millennium and, after a wretched few years marred by incidents off the field and a quick succession of coaches, they look back to their old ways under Michael Cheika. A squad that had seemed to be undermined by player power, to the extent that even the disciplinarian Robbie Deans failed to restore order, is now clearly under the control of one man.
Cheika has been the head coach for less than a year, taking over after a scandal over lurid text messages sent by a player to a female member of the management, but the Wallabies arrived in Britain as the winners of the Rugby Championship and showed during Wednesday’s victory over Fiji in Cardiff that rugby comes first now.
Attention was lavished on their failure to emulate England the previous week and secure a bonus point from Fiji, but the point that mattered ahead of Saturday’s meeting with the hosts at Twickenham was that for the first hour Australia showed more cohesion and organisation than any other major nation in their first outing this tournament. Having played only five Tests this year, Cheika welcomes the schedule that sees them follow Wednesday with Uruguay on Sunday before matches against England and Wales that will determine whether they continue their record of always making the knockout stage.
“People are asking how good we are,” says Cheika. “We are going to find out in the coming weeks. I do not know the answer to that question now but there has been an opinion about us for a while and it is up to us to change that by growing our performances. The changes in the rule over the eligibility of players has given us extra depth with the return of Matt Giteau, Drew Mitchell, Kane Douglas and Dean Mumm, and the more competition for places the better.”
Cheika has made 14 changes for the Uruguay match at Villa Park: it would have been 15 but for the concussion suffered by James Slipper against Fiji after he had come on as a replacement that requires Scott Sio to stay at loosehead prop and a number of positions in the side for the England match look open, especially behind the scrum.
“The way the draw panned out gives us a great opportunity to get into the game and into match mode,” Cheika says. “I really believe it is going to take 31 players to be in a competitive mood because in tournament play anything can happen. A new set of players has a chance to compete with their team-mates who beat Fiji. I would not want to blow the trumpet that we have the greatest depth, but we are fortunate to have players of this talent who enable us to rotate. The margins are so fine that any of the guys who will face Uruguay could have been playing in the previous game: sometimes calls are so tight that they come down to a gut decision.”
One tight call against England will be at scrum-half where Will Genia, regarded as the best player in the position as recently as the 2013 Lions tour to Australia, is vying with Nick Phipps. Genia started against Fiji and showed signs of his former sharpness in front of a back division that, containing the likes of Giteau, Tevita Kuridrani, Adam Ashley-Cooper and Israel Folau, relies on the ball being delivered swiftly.
“It was good to get out there and play,” says Genia, who made only his second Test start in nearly two years. “We are not comparing our performance against Fiji with England’s because that will not help us. All we can concentrate on is ourselves and the things we need to improve on.”
Australia defeated England in the 1991 World Cup final at Twickenham, which followed a group victory over them in the inaugural tournament four years earlier, but their record in the tournament against the men in white since then has been far from impressive; losing the 1995 quarter-final and the 2003 final to late drop goals before being overwhelmed up front in Marseille in the 2007 quarter-final.
The scrum has been a particular source of strife against England, with Twickenham the scene of various indignities and the referee on Saturday will be Romain Poite, who took exception to the Wallabies’ scrummaging technique in the final Lions Test two years ago from the opening set piece.
“We have been through some bad times in the scrum but we are moving in the right direction there,” Genia says. “We knew it was an area where we had to get better and Mario Ledesma [the former Argentina hooker] has done an excellent job in changing the focus and attitude at the scrum and I think it is showing on the field.” Saturday will tell.
