'New Zealand-style maul defence' stifling Wallabies attack

Eddie Jones and the Wallabies are promising big changes in their World Cup playbook after a slow start to their 2023 season.

Five losses is not what Rugby Australia signed up for when they dropped Dave Rennie in favour of Eddie Jones following a challenging 2022 season.

But not all losses are created equal and positive signs and learnings were evident in Australia’s last two tests against France and New Zealand.

With new partnerships taking shape amidst a bounty of new selections, Jones and the Wallabies have had their work cut out for them with such a short turnaround for the new coach.

In order to be successful at the World Cup, the team will have to live up to their promise of debuting a new style of play and executing it. But of course, establishing a foundation to play on top of is vital to getting the opportunity to play your game plan in the first place.

Head-to-Head

Last 2 Meetings

Wins

2

Draws

0

Wins

0

Average Points scored

31

12

First try wins

100%

Home team wins

100%

Rookie Flanker Tom Hooper says there’s a plan for that too, with the forwards working on new ways to assert themselves at set piece, specifically the rolling maul.

“We’ll keep our cards pretty close to our chest but just talking in terms of the opposition, we’re seeing more and more teams go towards that New Zealand-style maul defence with the horseshoe (shape),” Hooper said.

“So, they’ve got a really good wide platform and they’re defending our maul pretty well, we can’t really get around the sides of it.

“So, we’re going to have to add a bit more power to our maul and make sure that we’re actually going through it.

“As I said, we’ll keep our cards close to our chest as to how we’re going to do that but that’s the game plan you know, we’ve just got to really punch through that.

“We’ve talked about, we’ve just got to change our mindset around that, you saw on the weekend how our scrum was firing and if we can change our mindset, that it’s eight piggies against eight on the opposition, we can really impose ourselves there.”

Last weekend’s clash with France saw the Wallabies fall to a 41-17 loss at Stade de France, a match that prepared the team for just how boisterous the games will get at the World Cup.

Hooper’s fellow forward Taniela Tupou highlighted the team’s strategy after the match.

“We didn’t want to show too much before the World Cup,” Tupou told the Sydney Morning Herald. “We came into this game against France with a different game plan, just for this game. We only had a week to look at it.

“At training, we’ve been working on our game plan for the World Cup. It’ll be interesting coming out against Georgia with a different game plan.

“I guess we didn’t want to show too much before the World Cup started. Training was hard this week but then again, for us to be able to play the game plan that he wants us to play… we need to be fit.”