Author: Scott Allen

A quick video review of some of the decision making in last weekend’s game between the Wallabies and England. [youtube width=”600″ height=”450″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4waHnodyKuk[/youtube]

For me, the Wallabies losing to England is worse than if they lose to New Zealand.  What was even worse for me was the fact that it wasn’t even close – England were completely dominant.  If England can keep that sort of game going over the next twelve months they’ll definitely be a threat to the Southern Hemisphere teams at next years RWC and it’s also likely that the next time the Wallabies meet England will be in a RWC semi-final. So let’s look for some positives from the match to help us all feel a little better.  Let’s start with the…

Statistics don’t always tell the full picture!  Did you realise that the Wallabies and Wales both won 100% of their scrums in the game last weekend?  If you’d missed the match and only saw those statistics, you’d have no idea how badly the Wallabies scrum performed in the match. The Wallabies only had one scrum in the first half and it was under enormous pressure but McCalman came away with the ball.  In the second half the Wallabies had two scrums which were both won reasonably comfortably – one with Alexander at tight head and one with Slipper there.  The…

As you’ve all probably seen, Matt Giteau has been replaced as first choice goalkicker for the Wallabies by James O’Connor.  Giteau commented that he’s working on a new technique and didn’t think it was right that he should be experimenting during test matches. Recently I wrote an article that revealed from 2008 to 2010 Matt Giteau has had a pretty consistent goal kicking success rate of 73% when kicking for the Wallabies – see here.  I’ve seen reports that Giteau had an 81% success rate in Super Rugby in 2010 but I haven’t seen the data behind that number to…

In the second half of last week’s game both teams made some fundamental kicking errors.  Even ignoring the goal kicking woes of both teams (with the notable exception of James O’Connor) the kicking performance under the pressure of a close game was poor.  There were instances of not kicking the ball out from within your own 22, kicking the ball straight to the opposition player who was under no pressure, kicking the ball dead and wasting a golden opportunity to score with an ill conceived grubber kick on the try line.  The video below includes those lowlights. The Kiwis are…

Finally, a victory against New Zealand but what can we take out of the game?  Sure, a win is a win but now some of the excitement has died down let’s look at the statistics to see what they reveal. It was really enjoyable watching this game back when preparing my analysis and I have watched that final 15 minutes a number of times and I’m sure I will again. The Wallabies won 71% of their own lineout ball, well down on the 86% during the Tri Nations.  However they only had 7 lineouts and that means only 2 were…

Here’s the last installment in the Wallaby back line series bringing us up to the current season.  These videos cover every game in the first two years with Robbie Deans as coach.  Matt Giteau takes over as #10 and we see the emergence of Quade Cooper and Will Genia as Wallabies. Stirling Mortlock and Adam Ashley-Cooper demonstrate the advantage of having a big #13 that can break the line. I’ve seperated 2008 and 2009 into seperate videos given the amount of content in each. If you’ve missed the previous installments, they’re also repeated again below. [youtube width=”600″ height=”450″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq1zmX1AmIQ[/youtube] [youtube width=”600″ height=”450″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkZTmG-7nwg[/youtube]…

The last twelve months have seen plenty of discussion regarding Matt Giteau’s goal kicking for the Wallabies so I thought I’d take a look at the numbers to see what they tell us. There’s no doubt that the Wallabies wouldn’t have lost the games against Scotland on the 2009 EOYT, against England earlier this year and the final Tri Nations game against New Zealand this year if Giteau had kicked the goals he missed in those games.  I think you can also add in the game against Ireland on the 2009 EOYT because he missed a very make-able penalty that day as…

The All Blacks completed a clean sweep of the Tri Nations competition in 2010, the first team ever to do so.  It was a remarkable achievement built on the back of a great brand of attacking rugby.  There’s no doubt they are the best side in the world at the moment. What do the statistics from the competition show?  Are the Wallabies or Springboks getting closer to the All Blacks?  Well for the Wallabies the numbers show a positive trend but for the Springboks their numbers are heading the wrong way. Following is a short summary of the key statistics.  To…

John O’Neil has said publicly that he spoke to the Australian coaches prior to the Super 14 in 2010 and asked them to lift the emphasis on attack to provide more entertainment for the good of the game.  After the dour 2009 performance in the Tri Nations where only 27 tries were scored in 9 games, someone from SANZAR would have been justified in having a chat with the Tri Nations coaches to make the same request.  I doubt that happened but the change in law interpretations seems to have done the trick as there were more tries scored in the 2010…

Here’s the next installment in the Wallaby backline series.  As we get closer to the present, I’ve got more and more footage but I’ve also found that the number of highlights is diminishing. Don’t know what I was doing in 2006 but I didn’t record much rugby so we’re a bit light on there.  The Wallaby backs only scored five tries in four Tri Nations game in 2007 so I went to the RWC but that didn’t help much – in fact re-watching the pool game against Canada was torture.  No wonder the Wallabies didn’t get past the quarter finals when they…

Good defence relies on a number of aspects, not the least of which is maintaining a good structure with all defenders moving together and no defenders getting isolated.  Maintaining a good structure relies on players quickly realigning each phase so that the attacking team doesn’t achieve an advantage in numbers. The best way to break down a defensive structure is with consistently quick ruck ball.  If a team can achieve quick ruck ball phase after phase, defenders will fatigue and not realign as quickly as required which results in their defensive structure breaking down.  If the attacking team achieves this they’ll end…

Here are the five nominees for August.  They include Caleb Ralph’s try in the dying minutes of the Queensland Premier Grade Preliminary Final to earn his team a spot in the Grand Final and a great chase between Australian Sevens players, Luke Morahan and Liam Gill. September is the last chance to earn your club one of the six spots in the end of year final so get those entries in. [youtube width=”600″ height=”450″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2FEBTPdEdk[/youtube] QuestionsView Results

Whilst the Wallabies went down again, making it ten in a row against the All Blacks, it was a great game of rugby and the Wallabies were very competitive. It was good to see the Wallabies pressuring the All Black lineout which resulted in the All Blacks only winning 69% of their ball. Possession was fairly even with the Wallabies starting possession 40 times and the All Blacks 37.  However the All Blacks retained possession for 128 phases compared to 108 phases for the Wallabies.  As a result the Wallabies were forced to make 178 tackles compared to 143 for the…

There’s been lots of comment about whether the McCaw try on Saturday should have been disallowed because a) McCaw broke early from the scrum and now b) whether Woodcock’s arm hit the ground. When have you ever seen a game of rugby where the referees made no mistakes?  Refereeing mistakes are part of the game – they have been since day dot, they were on Saturday and they will be in future games.   Mistakes are made even when the TMO system is used to adjudicate on whether a try has been scored or not – no matter how many angles people…

Hallelujah and not just for the win but the Wallabies back line ran a first phase move during the game for only the second time in 2010! Not only that, there were several general play moves involving forwards and backs that looked like they’d been practiced at training.  Not surprisingly, these rare events produced line breaks and tries! Has Robbie Deans been holding them back? Has Richard Graham improved as a skills coach since it was announced he’ll take on the lead role at the Force next year?  The truth is out there somewhere – all I know is that…

What a game! Absolute dominance by the Wallabies in the majority of the first half and then it all turned around with the Springboks taking control for most of the second half until the Wallabies found a way to come back. Whilst I’ve seen comments that both sides played very poorly in the period of the game that the other side was dominating, that’s not how I saw it when reviewing the game last night. I’d actually put that down as one of the best games I’ve seen since the 2003 World Cup final but I don’t share the view…

At least this week the Wallabies attack was less about one out runners trying to crash through walls! Following on from my look at the Wallabies attack structure last week, here’s a follow up to see what effect the reintroduction of Quade Cooper had. I saw three areas of improvement: A flatter attacking line playing closer to the line, even when Giteau stepped into first receiver; Faster realignment so Genia had players ready to receive the ball and hence, faster ruck ball – this was helped by the flatter attack line so players didn’t have to run back as far to get…

There were some positive signs from the Wallabies last weekend, unfortunately offset by some negatives.  I’d prefer to be writing a positive piece focusing on the promising signs for the Wallabies but the continued inconsistency and failure to execute the basics well can’t be ignored – no wonder the coach, players and supporters are all frustrated. Quade Cooper made a huge difference to the Wallabies attitude in attack, partially offset by the fact that his defence has shown no improvement for the Wallabies this year. The support and organisation in attack was better, offset by poor ball retention that wasted…

Here they are (better late than never) – our top five tries for July. Last month our winner was Juan Van Vuuren from University of Queensland. Our August tries will be out at the end of next week so get your votes in now. QuestionsView Results