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To take a big step forward, the Wallabies have to take small steps backwards. Stay with me.
A new day dawned on Sunday and yet again the Wallabies, and their supporters, woke up with a confusing grab bag of emotions. There was pride and excitement about much of the team’s performance against Ireland on Saturday night, particularly in a blistering first half during which Australia repeatedly cut the Irish open, and scored four tries via clever attack and midfield line breaks.
Those sights aren’t common in modern Test rugby: Ireland’s mighty defence getting picked apart, and tries being scored that aren’t via battering-ram runs near the tryline.
The Wallabies’ defence was mostly brutal, the attacking breakdown was superb, the scrum (though rarely used) was dominant and the lineout went from poor on the spring tour to outstanding. Of the many Wallabies players who turned in excellent shifts, Rob Valetini was the pick: a granite-hipped colossus with 19 carries.
But then there was the cold reality that the Wallabies lost. A tight one, yes, but another loss.
Such was the binary nature of Ben Donaldson’s hero-or-zero kick to win the game after the siren, the ball sailed wide and the celebration and good vibes on the other side of that sliding door – for players and fans at a buzzing Allianz Stadium – faded with the kick.
“It’s heartening, but as has been mentioned, we’ve got to come out on the right side of a result,” Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt said. “Ireland are so miserly usually. You don’t get as many chances as we got, and we didn’t take enough of them. And we’ve got to be really hard on ourselves around that because that’s the reality.”
With a face like thunder, Wallabies skipper Harry Wilson was also not in much of a mood to talk up the positives.
“It just hurts when we feel like we’re not far away and we’re just losing a few big moments in the game. That’s what Test footy is,” he said. “You’ve got to win those moments. I really hope we take our lessons from these tough losses.”
So what are the lessons? What is needed for the Wallabies to turn tight defeats against the big boys into victories, and a place alongside them.
The clearest lesson on Saturday night was the Wallabies are contributing to their own demise with poor discipline. Consistently.
The Wallabies’ game can be like Whack-a-Mole at times. Fix a problem and a different one pops up: set pieces, aerial contests, handling, kicking. They’ve had their moments with them all.
But ill-discipline is a bad habit the Wallabies can’t seem to shake, and yet again it helped Ireland get off the hook in a game in which they were mostly outplayed. The Wallabies gave up 12 penalties – and probably just as many advantages – and all but one was conceded in their own half. The Irish only gave away four penalties in their own half.
“Ill-discipline has been a bit of a plague of this side, and again it was existing tonight. But that’s through our own fault,” halfback Tate McDermott said.
For all the good work done, the Wallabies undid it by repeatedly giving away silly (and sometimes harsh) penalties, which gave the Irish free access to Australia’s territory and try line. Four of Ireland’s five tries came via this same sequence.
They were a mix of avoidable sins: collapsing a maul, jumping across a lineout, not rolling away and offsides. Some were bad calls, some were fair enough. But once Ireland had kicked into the quarter and Australia were defending their own line, the hosts were in King Canute territory, trying to stop a green tide.
Not because Australia’s defence isn’t good enough to repel the Irish. It did, several times.
But the inevitability of tries in modern rugby when in the 22m zone is down to how strict refereeing teams police the offside line. Ireland coach Andy Farrell said Test rugby is won or lost on “fine margins”, but he may as well have said the offside line. Same thing.
Defenders must have feet – and hands – entirely behind the ruck, which can often be still moving forward. In a game where many indiscretions are overlooked, officials have decided this is where zero-tolerance pedantry is required, and a rolling series of advantages and penalties – and even cards – are now common. It all gives attacking teams multiple chances to score, and via basic NFL goal line barges, they usually do.
“You’re always at risk once they’re in your 22. They’re [officials] looking for anything and everything, fingernails, toes, whatever. We’ve just got to be better there,” Schmidt said.
Being set entirely behind the try line puts the defender at a massive disadvantage, so the name of the game is to keep rivals well away from it.
But via penalties from further out, and offsides from closer in, Australia gifted Ireland all the time and territory they needed to score. Gallant defence was never going to be enough.
The Wallabies’ next opponent is France. The French are electric in attack, but they’re also one of the world’s most disciplined sides. They conceded just seven penalties a game in the Six Nations this year, and won it.
The fastest way the Wallabies can turn a corner and beat the top sides is to behave like one.
It starts with eliminating avoidable breakdown penalties near the halfway line. And then, when defending in the red zone, taking one extra step backwards. It may just be the day’s fine margin.
The Wallabies have shown they have all the tools to beat any of the world’s big sides. To start doing it more often, they have to not beat themselves first.
