Australia’s 34-9 win against Argentina in their Rugby Championship match in Mendoza in late July might have been a decade ago for all the improvements the Pumas have made since.
Gone is the ten-man, scrum-centric game. In its place, an all-court game featuring arguably the world’s best scrum, a hooker and captain in Agustin Creevy who off-loads like Sonny Bill Williams, a dynamic and skilful set of loosies spearheaded by openside flanker Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, two brilliant young locks in Tomas Lavanini and Guido Petti, a nifty and clever half-back in Martin Landajo, Juan ‘El Majo’ Martin Hernandez in the midfield, an ultra reliable kicker with Nicolas Sanchez at 10; and all of that class turbo-charged by a lethal back three combination of full-back Joaquin Tuculet, and wingers Santiago Codero and Juan Imhoff. And, of course, the most crucial ingredient of all – confidence. The Pumas reek of it. They have become South America’s version of the All Blacks.
The transformation has been nothing short of remarkable. And the Wallabies, dare we say it, might have actually regressed since playing Wales in their final pool game two weeks ago. Many viewed the Wallabies’ heroic 15-6 win against Wales as a defining moment in their World Cup campaign, a game where the team finally believed it had what it took to win under extreme duress. It was the most courageous performance by a Wallabies team in living memory. However, it was an epic battle for which there has been a huge physical and mental cost: the Wallabies looked absolutely cooked from the off against Scotland last week.
Perhaps just how much playing Wales takes out of a team has been underestimated. For example, England, for all their sudden-death survival motivation, couldn’t muster the necessary intensity and effort required against Australia one week after playing Wales. And the Wallabies looked equally “flat” (the word coach Michael Cheika used) against Scotland. Wales, it seems, make the opposition play for their lives, stretching teams this way and that until the legs burn and lungs all but explode. And they do it for 80 minutes, and beyond if required. These are dark places of the soul where only the All Blacks can take you. England paid the ultimate price after playing Wales, and Australia nearly did the same against Scotland but for a controversial penalty. Indeed, it will be interesting to see if the Springboks, whose supposedly super fit tight five were cramping in the final quarter in their quarter-final win against Wales last week, can stick with the All Blacks past the hour mark in the first semi-final on Saturday. One suspects not.
Wales might be gone, but that supremely fit team has left an indelible mark on the tournament. Teams need ten days to fully recover after playing them; seven days is simply not enough. As it is, Australia will face the Pumas with injury clouds over key players David Pocock and Israel Folau, injuries either picked up or, in Folau’s case, severely aggravated against the Welsh (Prop Scott Sio has already been ruled out). Cheika has declared Pocock and Folau fit and ready to resume battle. However, it has been a touch and go affair with the pair’s inclusion only confirmed late on Friday afternoon in London. Time will tell the true condition of both.
Cheika’s mantra has been to focus on the game at hand with no thought as to what might come next. Given the Scotland fright, one might argue this is a sensible approach. On the other hand, one could point to Sean McMahon, who is on the bench for the Pumas game, to suggest the Wallabies could have spared Pocock until he’s fully fit. When we talk about the Wallabies’ prospects of winning any game, Pocock is the answer more often than not. In the context of this World Cup, though, the questions ought to be - can Australia beat Argentina without Pocock? And, relatedly, can Australia win the final without Pocock? If the answer to the first question is yes and the second is no, then the question becomes why risk Pocock against the Pumas? Perhaps Cheika’s loyalty to Michael Hooper has something to do with it.
The Wallabies can’t compete at the top level without a strong over-the-ball loose forward. Indeed, no team can such is the momentum-shifting importance of breakdown turnovers in the modern game. Even Stuart Lancaster would now accept that as fact. Hooper just doesn’t fit the bill as a fetcher, although he does other things extremely well such as ball-carrying and defending. So one would have logically assumed resting Pocock for another week would mean McMahon in for Hooper at seven, Scott Fardy remaining at six, and Ben McCalman at eight.
Of course, it’s difficult to criticise Cheika when the team is in such relatively good health compared to the dispirited rabble he inherited from Ewen McKenzie. Indeed, his winning percentage for 2015 is 90 per cent. Since taking over as Wallabies coach at the end of last year, Cheika has won 10 of 14 games for a winning percentage of 71.42 per cent. Clearly, he’s a man who knows what he’s doing when it comes to rugby teams. Having said that, it’s worth noting Australia’s one loss this year - to the All Blacks at Eden Park - came off the back of Cheika tinkering with a winning loose forward combination against the New Zealanders from the week before - specifically, dropping Pocock to the bench. With the Bledisloe Cup on the line, it turned out to be a disastrous call with the All Blacks thumping the Wallabies 41-13.
Indeed - as is the case with so many go-it-alone, brilliant rugby coaches and strategists - it’s often one flaw in their thinking that repeats itself until an eventual demise. Sometimes it’s a coach’s loyalty to a particular player. For Cheika, that flaw – his Achilles heel as it were - might turn out to be the same one that undid him in the Rugby Championship: an insistence in keeping Hooper at No7 when, in the absence of Pocock, it is clear the Wallabies must have a fetcher in the team.
To cast the argument another way, Pocock shouldn’t be playing against the Pumas. He’s only doing so because of Cheika’s reluctance to make a hard call on Hooper. The Wallabies may well beat the Pumas this weekend, but if they do so at the expense of Pocock being unavailable for the final, then it will be a Pyrrhic victory. Win or lose against the Pumas, perhaps the Wallabies in their quest to be the world’s best team might take on a selection process where there is a counter-balancing force like, say, the role Grant Fox does for the All Blacks.
