The Wallabies are back in Mendoza, an irresistibly charming city at the foothill of the Andes. To many it’s a place of serenity and natural beauty; ideal for refreshing mind, body and soul.
For the Wallabies, though, it’s a Rugby Championship road trip laden with psychological booby traps – a return to the city where they completely lost the plot barely 10 months ago courtesy of the Kurtley Beale/Di Patston/Ewen McKenzie fiasco. The McKenzie-coached Wallabies were a broken side well before kick-off against Argentina in the 2014 fixture. Indeed, given all the shenanigans off the field, it seemed only fitting that operatic singer Marcelo Zelada spectacularly butchered Advance Australia Fair, and that the Wallabies lost 21-17.
Mendoza 2014. It should forever be engraved in the Australian team’s consciousness in the way Nantes 1986 is for the All Blacks (not withstanding admissions by the then French team doctor that French players were loaded with amphetamines, which perhaps explains how All Black captain Buck Shelford lost teeth and had his scrotum ripped open). Almost a year on, the Wallabies have an opportunity to put the ghosts of Mendoza to rest early on Sunday morning (8am, AEST).
And although they might not be showing it on the field just yet, the Wallabies are a more cohesive and united outfit with Michael Cheika as coach and Stephen Moore reinstated to the captaincy following an unfortunate injury lay-off. The imbroglio and disharmony so characteristic of the team under an isolated McKenzie and the overly tolerant Robbie Deans have been definitively quelled.
A measure of the change that has taken place can be taken from last week’s 24-20 win against South Africa, an outcome that has been almost universally reported as some kind of lucky escape – a game the Springboks lost, and not one that the Wallabies won. That’s not an accurate assessment. It’s not like the Springboks lost because of player errors gifting victory to the Wallabies. Far from it. The Springboks were steady and in control for much of the first 60 minutes. However, the Wallabies won because they proved fitter over 80 minutes, especially with the judiciously timed introduction of bench players.
That’s not to say the Wallabies played good rugby by any stretch. In fact, they were decidedly average in large part. But they did find a way to win, and more importantly aspired to win when faced with the proposition of settling for a 20-all draw, or going for a win and risk losing. Moore’s captaincy was outstanding when this, the biggest decision of the match, was put before him.
In the context of being back in Mendoza, last week’s come-from-behind win against the Springboks has added meaning for the Wallabies. Coming into the Mendoza fixture last year, the Wallabies lost 28-10 to the Springboks in Newlands. Some might remember that was a game where the Wallabies led 10-8 up until the 66th minute, but then collapsed in a heap to ship 18 points, including three tries, in a tad under 10 minutes.
The roles were reversed just as dramatically last week in Brisbane. And Cheika would have been delighted for as poorly as the Wallabies played in Brisbane, they finally closed out a final quarter – a World Cup essential skillset Australian teams of recent years have rarely performed well against top tier opposition.
The Pumas have also improved based on recent performances, including their 39-19 loss to the All Blacks in Christchurch last weekend. The All Blacks, although winners by a healthy margin in the end, are still smarting after conceding two tries to the Pumas from line-out drives close to the line. In fact, the Pumas made it look easy. So much so that All Blacks coach Steve Hansen this week called line-out drives and mauls “bloody boring”, and argued lawmakers should change the rules to allow defending teams to collapse mauls without penalty.
Alas, line-out drives will still be in the rule book this weekend and how the Wallabies counter that tactic will be interesting. Will they disengage in the same the Joe Schmidt-coached Ireland side did so cleverly against the Boks last November?
And then there’s the Argentina scrum. Indeed, no pre-match discussion of a Wallabies Test can avoid scrum talk. Suffice to say it’s an ongoing concern, one that has plagued the side for years. It ought to improve now that former Puma international Mario Ledesma has signed up to help. But it won’t be an overnight fix, and certainly not in time for the World Cup. But perhaps too much is made of the Wallabies’ scrum woes. One fears the scrum inadequacy could become such a burdening preoccupation for Cheika and his assistants that they fail to look to other areas of potential strengths in the Australian game, ones they can build on and even, dare we say, become innovators.
Wallabies should look to AFL kicking gurus for help
One such area is kicking from re-starts. Australia invented Aussie Rules Football, a game mass producing players who can kick an oval ball half a dozen different ways and then some. And yet the Wallabies, who have an atrocious kicking game, have never really tapped into this backyard expertise.
The All Blacks, never one to miss a trick to stay ahead of the competition, have done exactly that in retaining former AFL player Mick Byrnes – aka Mick the Kick – as their kicking coach. Byrnes has been with the All Blacks since 2011. He has never played rugby. But he has had an enormous influence on the All Black kicking game - players kicking into space, dinky, contestable re-starts by Dan Carter and Aaron Cruden, and every kick accompanied with an organised chase line.
The point here is that the Wallabies should be leading this innovation, not the Kiwis who, it has to be said, have always found Aussie Rules to be a curious game, epitomised by Warwick Capper – the only AFL player’s name most New Zealanders recognise thanks to his male cameltoe shorts and the hit song I Only Take What’s Mine. Who knows, Capper might even be able to help out the Wallabies.
While on the point of cross-code learning, it surprises that more isn’t made of Israel Folau’s aerial skills. His performance against the Boks last week was astonishing, and he deserved to be man of the match more so than last gasp tryscorer Tevita Kuridrani. Why don’t the Wallabies use Folau for half-way re-starts the way the All Blacks use Kieran Read? One suspects this is an area of the game the Wallabies could excel at if they use Folau cleverly. He doesn’t even have to catch the ball in the air – a tap down to on-rushing support will do fine. The Boks showed the tap-down from an attacking kick inside the opposition 22 can also work with a stunning try to Eben Etzebeth.
The Wallabies need to be wary of going out against the Pumas with the intention of proving the scrum doubters wrong. They’d be better off focusing on their running game with Bernard Foley and Nick Phipps running the cutter. The Pumas were gassed by half-time against the All Blacks last week and have no fresh legs advantage having travelled back from Christchurch in the same week the Wallabies departed Australia. And, as mentioned, the Wallabies are not too shabby on the fitness front. They’d have lost last week were that not the case. Having said that, the one player they need to dent the opposition line, Will Skelton, will have to improve. He struggled last week.
Horwill sans fisticuffs is valuable for World Cup campaign
In fact, James Horwill looked much better and he only came on as a substitute. Horwill probably booked his ticket to the World Cup on that performance, the most telling aspect of which was his self-control in not retaliating when collared during a ruck melee late in the game. The Horwill of old would have done something silly, given away a penalty or, worse yet, got sent to the bin. The Horwill who calms his fists at provocation is a valuable player. Cheika, it seems, knows this.
Leaving Horwill out of the Mendoza match-day 23 ought not be seen as anything other than the Queenslander having done enough to secure World Cup selection. Skelton, on the other hand, needs Test playing time, which is entirely different from Super 15 playing minutes. Skelton is 23, a young athlete for a rugby tight forward with relatively few training miles under his legs. Cheika has no choice in the time span before the World Cup but to flog him at training during the week and put him down for as many playing minutes as possible. Inconsistency in performance would be expected. However, the Wallabies will need Skelton to fire this weekend.
If he does, and the Wallabies play a fast-paced game with off-loads at every opportunity, they can leave Mendoza with final closure on the annus horribilis of 2014.
Elsewhere: the All Blacks travel to South Africa to play the Springboks at Ellis Park in the other second round Rugby Championship match. Highlanders fly-half Lima Sopoaga has been given a surprise start ahead of Beauden Barrett who is on the bench. And Julian Savea has been rested for the two Bledisloe Cup encounters, the first of which is on August 8 in Sydney.
