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Analysis: The Wallabies have reached the peak of delusion

By Ben Smith
Wallabies cover

Trying to speak things into existence can be seen as having unwavering faith or complete delusion depending on how you look at it. For the Wallabies and Rugby Australia, this is what they have resorted to, and this is the perspective they must realise.

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As the ship sinks, they continue to see the mast protruding through the water’s surface and speak of its ability to hold the sail. Never mind the completely submerged hull.

This ship is only going to go to one place, no matter what you want to say.

Michael Cheika and Michael Hooper have reached the peak of this delusion, optimistically speaking of ‘good footy’, ‘improvement’ and ‘opportunities not taken’ in their post-match press conference after the recent defeat against the Springboks. Whether they hold different opinions in private is unknown, but it’s time to stop with this nonsense in public.

The Wallabies are in a state, a bad one, and this isn’t going to be fixed anytime soon.

They are so far behind it is sad to see. This team doesn’t resemble anything close to an elite professional rugby team, lacking simple draw and pass skills, handling skills, cleaning out skills, line running, the conditioning levels required of some positional units (specifically the tight five), not to mention a shared cognitive understanding of what they are trying to do.

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It’s not the losing, it’s how they are losing.

If you want to ignore the processes that make up a rugby game and fail to understand why they are so bad, just accept that a loss is a loss and continue to wonder why this keeps happening. If you want to take the red pill so to speak, continue on.

We detailed just how much the All Blacks have evolved since the last World Cup here, cutting out inefficiency during phase play by implementing advanced, organised patterns to counteract zero ruck strategies and improved defence. This found efficiency with numbers in attack enabling them to throw more complexity at the opposition.

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Ireland have also mastered this style of play and this has been, in part, reflected in their rise to number two in the world rankings. This Wallabies team doesn’t have any idea how to run the 1-3-3-1 pattern they are trying to, effectively playing pre-2015 rugby.

How many Wallabies does it take it clear a ruck? Six, apparently. Throw in a seventh guy to pass the ball for good measure.

This is all you need to see to know the Wallabies have no idea what is happening on each phase, with no understanding of the system in place to methodically break down a defence and retain possession like a clinical team.

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The collective rugby IQ of this team is close to zero. It is effectively a bunch of headless chooks, frantically scrambling around with no idea how to function as a unit. When you add in the sub-standard skills it becomes a complete dumpster fire.

This is what happens on the next phase. With seven players involved in the last ruck, Dane Haylett-Petty takes a run into the teeth of the Springbok forwards with no support.

The three closest players are South Africa’s loose forwards. No award for guessing what happens next, Haylett-Petty is penalised for holding on.

This is isn’t a one-off occurrence, at nearly every ruck there are ‘ruck inspectors’, guys who have no clue as to what they should be doing and have come to have a good look at the breakdown. Hand out the clipboards and hardhats.

The lack of any organised play inevitably leads to aimless kicking to try and find some stability, at the expense of keeping the ball in hand.

Cheika talks of how his team plays attacking rugby and how they throw the ball around. It’s disorganised rugby. It’s amateur rugby. It’s dumb rugby. The Wallabies whip the ball around but are so technically poor in so many areas that it’s dysfunctional, and most of the time it amounts to nothing before they kick the ball away.

You can find problems on literally every phase.

A simple carry by Adam Coleman (5) starts with a sloppy setup. Izack Rodda (4) is in front of the ball carrier, ruling out an inside tip and Ned Hanigan (6) is running to the outside but isn’t in sync with him.

Coleman isn’t looking to pass and Hanigan overruns him expecting it, leaving himself with a poor angle for the clean out. Rodda has assisted on the tackle for the Springboks, running into Coleman from the side. He will end up on the ground with the ball carrier giving South Africa a chance to contest the ball in a comical botch-up.

Here we see Wallabies hooker Folau Fainga’a setting up and calling for a carry. Despite being about five metres too deep, halfback Will Genia fires an unexpected ball to Scott Sio on his left.

It’s nothing short of shambolic, yet the captain and coach preach about how this is good footy and how they are proud of the efforts of the players. They are either delusional or lying, one of the two.

Australia is now seventh in the world rugby rankings – their worst ever ranking – three spots ahead of Fiji, a union with 1/100 of the resources of Rugby Australia. This is effectively rock bottom for a two-time World Champion.

This situation requires drastic action but the good thing is, being at or near rock bottom means you can make massive changes without too much pain – it’s pretty hard to get worse.

All courses of action need to be on the table for Rugby Australia, even the most extreme of measures.

Over half of the current Wallabies team would have a market value of approximately $15,000-$30,000 in New Zealand, the world’s number one team, equivalent to what they would make for a Mitre 10 Cup team. A few would be lucky to even make that cut.

Rugby Australia can afford to let eighty percent of these players walk to take up overseas contracts and continue to get the same results they are getting now. Should they do this? It is extreme but this is a dire situation, freeing up cash that can be deployed for a rebuild.

Here is the reality check for Australia’s professional players – when you are marginally better than Fiji as a team, you shouldn’t be getting paid anywhere near six figures. The Fijian national players sure don’t.

The only two worth paying big contracts for are David Pocock, who continues to be the only world-class player in the team, and Israel Folau, who has world-class athleticism and could be shaped into a better player with coaching. Everyone else is expendable. Everyone else.

One of the arguments for keeping Cheika on is a lack of suitable candidates to replace him. Whilst firing Cheika won’t immediately turn around the results, it is clear the current coaches are unable to take this squad any further.

In a previous generation, Australian coaches like Cheika make the pilgrimage to the Northern Hemisphere to impart their knowledge. Now the time has come for the reverse to happen, Rugby Australia needs to look for Europe’s best and could do worse than looking to Ireland who have built the world’s second-best team from the provincial level up.

Cheika is a passionate man who bleeds green and gold, and you know he will be the last man on board, committed to the very end. He has publicly stated he will step down as coach if the Wallabies don’t win the World Cup, so that gives Rugby Australia roughly 12 months to plan for a successor.

At all levels Rugby Australia has failed and needs to consider hitting the reset button, rebuilding from the ground up, and unfortunately, there will be collateral damage.

In other news:

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Jon 3 hours ago
Jake White: Are modern rugby players actually better?

This is the problem with conservative mindsets and phycology, and homogenous sports, everybody wants to be the same, use the i-win template. Athlete wise everyone has to have muscles and work at the gym to make themselves more likely to hold on that one tackle. Do those players even wonder if they are now more likely to be tackled by that player as a result of there “work”? Really though, too many questions, Jake. Is it better Jake? Yes, because you still have that rugby of ole that you talk about. Is it at the highest International level anymore? No, but you go to your club or checkout your representative side and still engage with that ‘beautiful game’. Could you also have a bit of that at the top if coaches encouraged there team to play and incentivized players like Damian McKenzie and Ange Capuozzo? Of course we could. Sadly Rugby doesn’t, or didn’t, really know what direction to go when professionalism came. Things like the state of northern pitches didn’t help. Over the last two or three decades I feel like I’ve been fortunate to have all that Jake wants. There was International quality Super Rugby to adore, then the next level below I could watch club mates, pulling 9 to 5s, take on the countries best in representative rugby. Rugby played with flair and not too much riding on the consequences. It was beautiful. That largely still exists today, but with the world of rugby not quite getting things right, the picture is now being painted in NZ that that level of rugby is not required in the “pathway” to Super Rugby or All Black rugby. You might wonder if NZR is right and the pathway shouldn’t include the ‘amateur’, but let me tell you, even though the NPC might be made up of people still having to pull 9-5s, we know these people still have dreams to get out of that, and aren’t likely to give them. They will be lost. That will put a real strain on the concept of whether “visceral thrill, derring-do and joyful abandon” type rugby will remain under the professional level here in NZ. I think at some point that can be eroded as well. If only wanting the best athlete’s at the top level wasn’t enough to lose that, shutting off the next group, or level, or rugby players from easy access to express and showcase themselves certainly will. That all comes back around to the same question of professionalism in rugby and whether it got things right, and rugby is better now. Maybe the answer is turning into a “no”?

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j
john 6 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

But here in Australia we were told Penney was another gun kiwi coach, for the Tahs…….and yet again it turned out the kiwi coach was completely useless. Another con job on Australian rugby. As was Robbie Deans, as was Dave Rennie. Both coaches dumped from NZ and promoted to Australia as our saviour. And the Tahs lap them up knowing they are second rate and knowing that under pressure when their short comings are exposed in Australia as well, that they will fall in below the largest most powerful province and choose second rate Tah players to save their jobs. As they do and exactly as Joe Schmidt will do. Gauranteed. Schmidt was dumped by NZ too. That’s why he went overseas. That why kiwi coaches take jobs in Australia, to try and prove they are not as bad as NZ thought they were. Then when they get found out they try and ingratiate themselves to NZ again by dragging Australian teams down with ridiculous selections and game plans. NZ rugby’s biggest problem is that it can’t yet transition from MCaw Cheatism. They just don’t know how to try and win on your merits. It is still always a contest to see how much cheating you can get away with. Without a cheating genius like McCaw, they are struggling. This I think is why my wise old mate in NZ thinks Robertson will struggle. The Crusaders are the nursery of McCaw Cheatism. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably the father of it. Robertson doesn’t know anything else but other countries have worked it out.

28 Go to comments
A
Adrian 8 hours ago
Will the Crusaders' decline spark a slow death for New Zealand rugby?

Thanks Nick The loss of players to OS, injury and retirement is certainly not helping the Crusaders. Ditto the coach. IMO Penny is there to hold the fort and cop the flak until new players and a new coach come through,…and that's understood and accepted by Penny and the Crusaders hierarchy. I think though that what is happening with the Crusaders is an indicator of what is happening with the other NZ SRP teams…..and the other SRP teams for that matter. Not enough money. The money has come via the SR competition and it’s not there anymore. It's in France, Japan and England. Unless or until something is done to make SR more SELLABLE to the NZ/Australia Rugby market AND the world rugby market the $s to keep both the very best players and the next rung down won't be there. They will play away from NZ more and more. I think though that NZ will continue to produce the players and the coaches of sufficient strength for NZ to have the capacity to stay at the top. Whether they do stay at the top as an international team will depend upon whether the money flowing to SRP is somehow restored, or NZ teams play in the Japan comp, or NZ opts to pick from anywhere. As a follower of many sports I’d have to say that the organisation and promotion of Super Rugby has been for the last 20 years closest to the worst I’ve ever seen. This hasn't necessarily been caused by NZ, but it’s happened. Perhaps it can be fixed, perhaps not. The Crusaders are I think a symptom of this, not the cause

28 Go to comments
T
Trevor 10 hours ago
Will forgotten Wallabies fit the Joe Schmidt model?

Thanks Brett.. At last a positive article on the potential of Wallaby candidates, great to read. Schmidt’s record as an international rugby coach speaks for itself, I’m somewhat confident he will turn the Wallaby’s fortunes around …. on the field. It will be up to others to steady the ship off the paddock. But is there a flaw in my optimism? We have known all along that Australia has the players to be very competitive with their international rivals. We know that because everyone keeps telling us. So why the poor results? A question that requires a definitive answer before the turn around can occur. Joe Schmidt signed on for 2 years, time to encompass the Lions tour of 2025. By all accounts he puts family first and that’s fair enough, but I would wager that his 2 year contract will be extended if the next 18 months or so shows the statement “Australia has the players” proves to be correct. The new coach does not have a lot of time to meld together an outfit that will be competitive in the Rugby Championship - it will be interesting to see what happens. It will be interesting to see what happens with Giteau law, the new Wallaby coach has already verbalised that he would to prefer to select from those who play their rugby in Australia. His first test in charge is in July just over 3 months away .. not a long time. I for one wish him well .. heaven knows Australia needs some positive vibes.

21 Go to comments
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