THE absence of David Pocock and Israel Foley because of injury has deprived Australia of two of their best players, but they easily have the strength in depth required to offset that loss. And, while they have any number of gifted individuals to rely on against Scotland, their greatest virtue probably lies in their collective discipline and strength.
Back in 1999, when the Wallabies won the Rugby World Cup for the second and so far the last time, they conceded only one try all tournament. They are on course to equal that enviable statistic this time round, thanks to an excellence in defence that combines systematic precision with an almost masochistic willingness to soak up punishment for the good of the collective. That selfless attitude was displayed in what was arguably the most impressive passage of play in the competition so far, when Australia were down to 13 men yet still denied Wales a try.
“Defence is often a reflection of how hard you want to work for each other and it certainly showed that they turned up for one another,” Scotland’s own defence coach, the Australian-born Matt Taylor, said yesterday. “Wales played pretty direct at times and then pushed out wide, and one thing Australia are very good at is that they have a kind of flat blitz.
“Wales were making slight inroads, but when they passed it out Australia pressed them and all of a sudden they were being hit behind the gain line. They did a really good job there - it looks like something they’ve worked really hard on.”
While rugby has evolved considerably in the past 16 years, the virtues of that team who won the cup at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium still inform the work of the current side, not least because Stephen Larkham and Nathan Grey, two of the men who went home with winners’ medals back then, are now assistants to head coach Michael Cheika. “There is a daily connection to the 1999 group, because we have a couple of coaches [Larkham and Grey] who played in that,” Cheika said. “They’re generally more interested in competing against each other in training than showing the rest of the boys what to do! I’m not sure they played in the same team together, because they are always at each other.
“There is a place for using that experience. Just knowing those guys, talking to those guys, just as a part of your own development is something that would be in the players’ minds. A lot of them would have been young fellas getting up and watching that tournament. You see a lot of those guys around, you run into them: it’s a part of our own journey.”
The low-key irreverence that so many Australian teams enjoy was epitomised back then in the slogan they adopted for their campaign: Bring Back Bill. It was their pet name for the Webb Ellis Cup, and the idea was that they were coming north to find a long-lost friend who had been missing since 1991, when they first became world champions. They found Bill all right, and they took him home to Oz, and they have a growing belief that, after another long awol spell, it is about time he returned to what they regard as his rightful residence: the trophy room at the Australian Rugby Union headquarters.
Pocock has been the outstanding player to date in their campaign, this time round, but Cheika’s reshuffle of his back row to compensate for the openside’s absence could pose Scotland fresh and unexpected problems. The head coach usually goes for maximum mobility and menace at the breakdown by selecting two natural No 7s - Pocock and Michael Hooper. Scotland coach Vern Cotter - who named his team before learning that Pocock and full-back Folau were out - attempted to counteract that by picking two of his own in John Hardie and Blair Cowan, even if he downplayed the tactic by implying that Cowan is just as good a six as he is a seven.
Rather than try to stick to the two-sevens policy, Cheika has retained Hooper, but gone for a genuine blindside in Scott Fardy, and selected Ben McCalman at No 8. McCalman, the coach said, had done the jobs of one and a half men against the Welsh.
The game could depend on how well Scotland’s own back row fares against that trio, but the midfield combination of Matt Giteau and Tevita Kuridrani could be just as influential. Certainly, their opposite numbers, Mark Bennett and Peter Horne, are likely to have their hands full in defence.
In short, as Hardie said, the Wallabies are strong across the park. “We know as a team what they’re good at. You can focus too much on one strength of theirs and not worry about what else they’ve got: great attacking ability, wingers and full-backs who are good in the air, great half-back, world-class players right across the paddock. We have to be aware of everything.”
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