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Wallabies hardly spoiled for choice
Wayne Smith, Rugby Union Editor | March 10, 2008
Wallabies hardly spoiled for choice | The Australian
JUNE 14 is some way off, happily, because if the Wallabies had to play Ireland today instead of in 96 days' time, Robbie Deans and his co-selectors would be struggling to find a worthy starting XV.
Four rounds of Super 14 have served to highlight just how threadbare Australia is in a number of positions. While reinforcements are on the way in the shape of Stirling Mortlock, Hugh McMeniman and Adam Ashley-Cooper (all on the mend from injuries), the current position is uninspiring bordering on grim.
Certainly there are pockets of promise. Matt Giteau, Stephen Hoiles and Rocky Elsom all have leapt out of the blocks, but many of Australia's senior international players have reacted to the starter's gun like it has woken them from a deep sleep.
Normally, the task of selecting the Wallabies' XV is a straightforward one at the start. Simply ink Chris Latham's name in alongside the No15 and then worry about the wingers. This season, however, it is Latham who is the worry. He looks sunken-eyed and distracted.
Granted, he has every reason to be, playing behind a Reds side that gives away more cheap real estate than a dodgy municipal council. But he normally has that Kiplingesque knack of keeping his head while all around him are losing theirs.
Not this year. He had two kicks charged down by the Stormers - one led to a try, the other should have - but it's not just his kicks that are flat. It was a truly worrying sight when he showed so little emotion after scoring the Reds' opening try on Saturday night. Normally he provides a season's worth of promotional clips whenever he scores, pointing so jubilantly to the crowd that you'd swear he was a Democratic candidate for the US presidency. But lately it's like he doesn't get the point at all.
Still, a low-wattage Latham shines brighter than any other Australian fullback. Cameron Shepherd has had his moments for the Force and the Brumbies' Mark Gerrard is proving he is better equipped to play fullback than wing, but if the team was being picked today, Latham would be what he has been since 2004 - the last line, first picked.
Wings? Drew Mitchell and Lote Tuqiri. No real threats to either. More enthusiasm over Mitchell's selection, perhaps, but it was nonetheless refreshing to see Tuqiri racing away for his try against the Brumbies, even if the refereeing that permitted it helps explain where the expression "blinding rain" comes from.
Tuqiri feeds on confidence and, like all wingers, his confidence comes from scoring tries, so, for Australia's sake, the more the merrier.
Now it starts to get seriously scary. Assuming Giteau will be wearing 10 for the duration, and quite possibly for the remainder of his career, Australia has to rebuild its midfield.
Mortlock might be the world's best No13, but his speed is not quite what it was and with the experimental laws in force, now might be the moment to reassign him to inside centre.
Still, all that is predicated on 2007 form and Mortlock is yet to make an appearance in 2008 as anything but a waterboy.
So for the sake of highlighting just how thin the Wallabies' resources really are, let's leave him and Ashley-Cooper out of the reckoning. It is, after all, supposed to be a form XV.
Maybe it says something about the way Australian rugby is heading, but the three likeliest-looking centre contenders at present all come from rugby league: the Force's Ryan Cross, Timana Tahu of the Tahs and George Smith's younger brother, Tyrone, of the Brumbies. Admittedly, of that trio, only Cross has genuinely solid form on the board this season. Where Tahu is concerned, it's all promise and in the case of Smith, the jury has been sequestered overnight to have another think about it.
True, there are other options. The NSW centres, Tom Carter and Ben Jacobs, are no-frills players, while the selectors could do worse than to try to create a spot for Gerrard at No12. Yes, that's not forgetting the failed experiment with him at 10.
Of course, the most attractive option would be to cut straight to the Force's James O'Connor and fit him out in a gold jersey before he gets measured up instead for one in black or green. Or do you think that's rushing it a little for a 17-year-old?
Who would have thought it would end up being more difficult to replace George Gregan than Steve Larkham? But while the transition at 10 promises to be seamless, it's anyone's guess who will have the No9 on his back.
Matt Henjak would have been a genuine contender, judging from his performance against the Sharks, but sadly that match was his entire season, indeed all that was left of his career for the Force. Meanwhile, Sam Cordingley's chances have been hit hard by injury but harder still by having to play behind a Reds pack that doesn't pack a punch.
Unless the selectors are prepared to gamble on a raw but slick-passing halfback like the Force's James Stannard, that leaves two halfbacks of similarly pugnacious temperament: the Waratahs' Brett Sheehan and Patrick Phibbs of the Brumbies. Take your pick. Neither would let Australia down.
The back five in the Australian scrum should cause the selectors little grief - Hoiles, revelling in the new laws, would supplant Wycliff Palu at number eight, at least until Palu stops drifting in and out of games, Elsom and George Smith and, for one last season, Dan Vickerman and Nathan Sharpe in the second row.
It's a lucky dip at tighthead following Guy Shepherdson's indifferent start to the season. Any number of No3s have had their moments, including Reds novice Dayna Edwards, but AJ Whalley of the Force probably has been the most consistent and as a former backrower, he is a genuine ball-carrying prop.
No doubt England hooker Mark Regan would be delighted to see one of the Tele-Tubbies return on the other side of the scrum, but for all the teasing he cops, Matt Dunning remains the best Australia has at loosehead, edging out Greg Holmes, Nic Henderson and Gareth Hardy.
And at hooker, it's got to be the Tahs' unstoppable Adam Freier. Stephen Moore seems to be suffering more than most from the Reds' disintegration and is playing like a man who wants out. At the opposite end of the enthusiasm scale is Saia Faingaa, and it surely won't be long before it's the Wallabies and not just the Brumbies who are benefiting from his competitiveness.
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