Wobblies get lesson in small things

Saturday night’s loss by the Wallabies, kids, was the reason we do all the boring and tedious drills at training each week. The simple fact of the matter is that if you can’t do the little things well, the “one-percenters” as we call them, champion teams will towel you up.

Brett McKay, The Roar

Saturday night is why we work on our tackling techniques, why we perfect our re-starts, why we do passing drills longer than we probably need to, and why we practice our work at the breakdown.

The whole point of these drills is that with repetition, these skills – these little things – become second nature; they become instinctive. When you don’t have to think about the little things, you can play on instinct, and when you play on instinct, that’s what wins you big matches.

The Wallabies, kids, copped a lesson in why the little things are so important in rugby.

Just consider these sample tid-bits from Saturday night, just a quick flick through where the Wallabies let themselves and their coaches down by failing in the one percenters:

• After seeing Dan Carter have a clearing kick charged down for the first try of the match, Matt Giteau on-passed to Berrick Barnes, who then had to kick under pressure into three defenders, and Carter himself was able to snare a charge-down try. Giteau was already inside his own 22, and had more time and space than did Barnes. Why wouldn’t he just kick himself?

• After Owen Franks was penalised and yellow-carded for a massive shoulder-first tackle on Richard Brown, the Wallabies inexcusably failed to find touch with their kick.

• The Wallabies shortly afterwards then gave up their numbers advantage when Drew Mitchell was penalised and yellow-carded for the same offence.

• Will Genia at one point gave away a short-arm penalty from the scrum for failing to feed the ball when directed.

• Mitchell knocked the ball out of Conrad Smith’s hands as he was shaping for the quick lineout throw, and in full view of referee Craig Joubert. Joubert had warned both captains before half time that he would have no hesitation in issuing cards for players who deliberately knocked the ball away in quick tap situations.
Joubert proved he wasn’t bluffing, and confirmed Mitchell’s stupidity, by issuing the yellow as warned. Except, Drew, you already copped a yellow card in the first half, and so the promised yellow in this situation became a red card for you, didn’t it, and the Wallabies would play the last 36 minutes of the game with 14 men.
And you can probably thank your lucky stars the judiciary left it at that.

• Mils Muliaina crosses out wide for his second try, but unforgivably, was allowed to run around closer to the posts before grounding the ball.

• From All Black re-starts, the Wallabies regularly failed to contest the ball, and Kieran Read was able to run through and win the ball for fun. At which point would you expect that situation might be rectified: the first, fourth, or tenth time?

• Barnes kicked ahead in one attacking phase, but without telling replacement winger Kurtley Beale. The ball may as well have been just given to the All Blacks, for all the kick and no-chase achieved.

• Richard Brown, after an Australian scrum win, went without the ball and the All Blacks’ loose forwards were left to pick up the ball with ‘I can’t believe he just did that’ looks on their faces.

And they were just the things that came to me as I started typing. I’m sure there were plenty of other ‘little things’ that I’ve left out.

No team, at any level of competition, can make silly little mistakes like these ones and expect to be competitive in a match. When that match doubles as the first Bledisloe Cup clash of the season, it was only through the good grace of a few wayward Carter shots at goal that didn’t have the Wallabies staring down the barrel of a record loss.

What’s worse is that the Wallabies barely resembled the side that so clinically put South Africa away the week before in Brisbane. They were wearing the same colours, and David Pocock will most deservedly get the player’s player votes again – and by some margin, I’d suggest – but they didn’t look like the Wallabies we’d just fallen back in love with.

Only late last week on The Roar, I made a comment on the real challenge facing the Wallabies going into this match, saying, “that’s the thing about consistency, you’ve got to do it all the time.”

All of a sudden, it’s like 2009 and it’s déjà vu all over again. Melbourne is the new Wellington.

Return clash

So exactly how do the Wallabies turn this display around in time for the return clash in Christchurch this week?

Well, I expect they’ll be being ‘strongly encouraged’ (because I suppose beatings aren’t cool any more) that they have to offer more than just on-off runners in attack, and likewise, they’ll be ‘having their memories jogged’ of the importance of effective tackling.

They’ll be made to sit through endless replays of both rucks that David Pocock didn’t contest, and then they’ll be ‘subtly reminded’ that as good as this guy is already, he can’t do everything on his own at the breakdown (although he did go a long way to proving that perhaps he can).

The Wallabies proved in Brisbane that doing the little things well allows them to play the way they want to (and the way we want to see). They proved that when on song, they’re as good a team as you could hope for.

After Melbourne, and after a good old-fashioned training track flogging, let’s just hope they’ve now heeded the lesson of the little things.