Wallabies leave rust in dust as Azzurri await
Wayne Smith, Rugby union editor | June 08, 2009
Article from: The Australian
IF Italy coach Nick Mallett thought it unfair last week for his side to be forced to play Australia and New Zealand over three consecutive Saturdays, he would be feeling even more aggrieved after watching the Wallabies boss the Barbarians.
Bad enough to be faced with a ludicrously difficult itinerary - although the Springboks will confront exactly the same challenge in their final three Tri-Nations Tests in August-September - but worse, the Italians cannot even count on the Wallabies being rusty on Saturday night in Canberra.
What little rust had accumulated since the Wallabies disbanded last December was scraped away in the abrasive early exchanges with the Baa-Baas. By the full-time whistle, the Australians were down to cold, hard, gleaming steel.
Admittedly, it would be foolhardy to read too much into Australia's runaway win at the Sydney Football Stadium, even setting aside the five-try blow-out over the final 30 minutes when the Barbarians ran out of puff, just as they had done against England a week earlier.
As technically proficient as the individual Barbarians were in the set piece, collectively they didn't challenge the Australians. Not so next weekend's opponent.
Even without injured prop Martin Castrogiovanni - probably the only genuinely world-class player in the Azzurri aside apart from captain Sergio Parisse - the Italian scrum will be much more threatening.
And someone needs to tell the Wallabies, and for that matter referee Stu Dickinson, the ELV that allowed the rolling maul to be pulled down has now passed into history. Any time the Barbarians attempted to get the maul moving on Saturday night, as they did right at the outset barely 10m from the Australian line, the Wallabies collapsed it with impunity, even fringing offside to do so.
Allowances have to be made for the fact this was a Baa-Baas match and that Dickinson was controlling it accordingly, but French referee Romain Poite and England's Dave Pearson will have neither the latitude nor the inclination to look the other way if the Wallabies attempt similar stunts in the two Tests against Italy.
Make no mistake, the Italians are just itching to turn these Tests into maul-a-thons, having been forced by the IRB's law experiments to go through the Six Nations without being able to wield the one scary weapon in their armoury.
But as much as Mallett would love to reduce the Canberra and Melbourne Tests to Keystone Cop affairs, with all the action confined to a writhing 32-legged beast inching its way up and down the field, the Wallabies have no intention of being sucked into any extended mauling contests. And why would they, when they have at their disposal arguably the most potent running game in world rugby, commanded by a player whose genius has come into full blossom.
Lately, writing about Matt Giteau has become a hazardous affair because every time he plays he nudges the superlative bar ever higher. At the start of the Super 14, he was Australia's best five-eighth. By the end of it, he was the best in the world. Now, on the admittedly contestable evidence of his display against a composite team, he merits consideration among the greatest playmakers the game has ever seen.
Yet even reining in the hyperbole and simply restricting ourselves to comparing Giteau to the Australian greats Phil Hawthorne, Mark Ella, Michael Lynagh and Steve Larkham, it is apparent he is missing something. Or, more correctly, someone. Hawthorne had Ken Catchpole as his halfback, Ella and Lynagh bookended Nick Farr-Jones's career while Larkham's name forever will be linked to George Gregan's. In short, great five-eighths had great halfbacks inside them.
Luke Burgess isn't a great halfback - yet - and neither is Josh Valentine. But if the Wallabies are to squeeze every last drop of advantage out of Giteau's abilities, as they will need to do if they are to reclaim the Tri-Nations, Bledisloe and World Cups, they must find themselves a halfback whose job, quite simply, is to make his five-eighth look good.
Burgess has so many admirable traits. His running game is outstanding and, as Sonny Bill Williams would ruefully attest, his defence is ferocious. But his passing, while mostly crisp and accurate on Saturday night, remains hit and miss.
What good will it do the Wallabies if Giteau detects an opportunity out to his left if the pass coming to him forces him to bend low to his right? Valentine doesn't offer nearly what Burgess does around the field but at least Giteau knows where his pass is going.
Burgess admittedly hasn't just partnered him through an entire Super 14 campaign, as Valentine has done, but he and Giteau have now played 11 Tests together and still there is little evidence of real fluency in their partnership. What a pity that Will Genia, who has both a passing and a running game, won't be fully recovered from hand surgery until the spring tour.
It is still unclear how much experimentation, if any, coach Robbie Deans has planned for the June Tests. But if Valentine is given a start in the nine jersey, then a number of other current fringe dwellers might also prick up their ears expectantly at tomorrow's team announcement.
Tatafu Polota-Nau would be one leaning forward in his seat, as he turns up the heat on hooker Stephen Moore. So too Ben Alexander, even if rival loosehead Benn Robinson has done nothing wrong and a whole lot right. Still, either way, Australia not only has depth and technical expertise in both front-row positions, it has a whole lot of mobility.
Perhaps, in the spirit of preparing for worst-case scenarios, Giteau might even be rested for one of the Italy Tests, simply to keep Berrick Barnes game-ready at 10. Then again, that might be taking self-denial to extremes because the Giteau-Barnes combination is shaping as a brilliantly creative 10-12 pairing in the tradition of Larkham-Giteau, Larkham-Tim Horan, Lynagh-Horan and Ella-Lynagh.
Speaking of self-denial, how much longer can Deans keep James O'Connor out of his starting XV? Sadly for the teenager, the answer could be "for a little longer yet" because there was a lot to admire about Adam Ashley-Cooper's comprehensive performance at fullback against the Barbarians. And let's not even get started on the wing debate.
Across the board, the competition for gold jerseys is becoming intense.
More and more the Wallabies are taking on the lean and hungry look of a Deans-coached team.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...015651,00.html
