Wallabies coach Michael Cheika looks to older heads to fire World Cup bid......
Wallabies coach Michael Cheika looks to older heads to fire World Cup bid, with history suggesting experience is crucial
Iain Payten
The Daily Telegraph
July 16, 2015 4:26PM
WHEN Greg Holmes last pulled on a Wallabies jersey, Kevin Rudd had yet to become Prime Minister (the first time), the Storm had just “won” an NRL premiership, Barack Obama was still a Chicago senator and the median house price in Sydney — now close to a million bucks — was pocket change at $570,000.
The year was 2007 and Holmes’ last Test was in a World Cup pool game against Canada in Bordeaux.
The young prop helped the Wallabies to a 37-6 win but his name was not called out for the quarter-final side the next week and until this week had not been called out by any of the three Wallabies coaches since.
A consistently honest tight-head, Holmes continued to shunt away for Queensland and his return to the Wallabies bench to meet the Springboks in Brisbane now has the 32-year-old in line to make history.
When Holmes runs out in Suncorp Stadium, it will have been seven years, nine months and 19 days since he won his last cap, or 2849 days. That’s 392 more days than Radike Samo’s world record gap, accrued between 2004 and 2011.
Holmes’ wait between Tests amounts to 407 Saturdays, over four million minutes, four changes of prime minister and close to the duration of Mark Ella’s entire Test career. Sorry, make that TWO Mark Ella careers.
The Beatles released every album they ever made in less time than Holmes has had to wait for a 14th Test cap.
But it is not just Holmes’ selection that’s given the 2015 Wallabies a retro feel.
In picking Matt Giteau for his first Test since 2011, and Drew Mitchell and David Pocock for their first caps since 2012, Michael Cheika might need to pencil in some anthem lyrics lessons.
Cheika has turned the steering wheel hard towards experience in his World Cup planning. There are seven players over 30 in his matchday 23 to meet the Springboks, when not long ago it was rare to have one.
Cheika’s course is a drastic change of direction from the path of Robbie Deans toward the 2011 World Cup. Deans threw his faith in kids and with a youth brigade centred around Genia, Cooper, Pocock, O’Connor and Beale, the Wallabies were one of the youngest teams in the 2011 tournament. They had just three squad members over 30 (Nathan Sharpe, Dan Vickerman, Radike Samo) and New Zealand had eight.
Who won it? New Zealand — the oldest team in the tournament. Who won in 2007? The oldest. In 2003? The oldest.
Getting the picture?
“Experience has huge impact,” argues Sharpe, the former Wallabies captain whose long career saw him on the field in the first and last Tests of Holmes, Giteau, Mitchell and Pocock.
“One thing I talk to people about is every team that’s won a World Cup had the most experienced team, both in age and to a lesser degree caps.
“Experience in the game allows people to have consistency in their preparation. If you have the mentors and leaders in the team being consistent in their preparation, it gives the younger players no other choice.
“I always feel with a great ratio of experienced players, it really helps younger guys get ready to play consistently each week.”
Sharpe knows the youth v experience balance better than most. After Deans jettisoned older Wallabies (including Holmes, Giteau and at times even Sharpe) from 2008 through to the 2011 World Cup, the big lock made the World Cup squad but was dropped for the semi-final against New Zealand. It would have been his 100th Test.
Deans eventually converted to the value of experience, and after pleading with Sharpe to not retire, ultimately made him captain the next year.
“I reckon having Gits back, and Drew, is a masterstroke by the ARU. How much they play and so on I don’t know but they are going to set the tone for the culture of the organisation,” Sharpe, who has just been added to Channel Ten’s commentary team, said.
“I read Israel saying Gits is like a Lockyer, and they’re the sort of people you need around a team. You can’t show me a World Cup-winning side without a statesman like that in the team. In fact, you need a smattering of them. It’s vital.”
Cheika has a track record of valuing the wisdom of greybeards, and used Stephen Hoiles and Mitch Chapman extensively in the 2014 Waratahs’ title.
And to be fair to Deans, many of the youth brigade he brought through are now those greybeards — if not in age, in experience terms.
Deans always projected to the 2015 World Cup as the one where the veterans of 2011 would be back and mature enough to go a few games more. He wanted to be there too.
When it comes to World Cups, the hoary old adage of losing one to win one actually stacks up.
Many of the Kiwi side who lost in 2003 and 2007 were still on deck in 2011. Their team in the final against France had a combined 940 Test caps.
Cheika is a World Cup newbie but he can read the history. Zimmerframes are the Zeitgeist.
There’ll be changes come September, sure, but the Wallabies 23 for this weekend against the Springboks has a total of 1023 Test caps.
Almost one-third of them are aged 30 or more.
Tricks may be out but when it comes to old dogs, new World Cups are bang on.
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