1) Owen "No Arms" Farrell has walked free of sanction for shoulder charges in his last three tests. The Rodda "tackle" was a penalty and a yellow card and there a penalty try. No ifs or buts. Three of said tackles in three weeks, he should now be suspended. Apart from this glaring error I thought Peyper (and over three weeks he is not alone in this) had a good game.
2) The Wallabies attack is beyond woeful :-
a) Kicking is an essential part of Rugby, the headless chook running game that has been employed last year and earlier this year is stupid and easily beaten by a stout organised defence. The Wallabies kicking though rarely is well executed even when it is the right time to kick. To start with the wrong players continue to be in the position to kick and no second option is in position to make the opposition guess who is going to kick, allowing easy charge downs like got DHP. The second part of attacking kicks, be they chips, box kicks or a contesting high kick is that they must be accurate to allow a genuine contest. Against England I do not care to count how many of these types of kicks were made but there was only a single kick that was truly contestable. Second part of attacking kicks is for territory, the Wallabies rarely kick for territory, possibly because their lineout is unable to pressure the opposition enough to make it worthwhile, but surely there has to be something better than just thumping as far as one can down the middle of the pitch. Was it one or two tries this led to in this game?
b) The attack structure with ball in hand is very poor and without a couple of bits of individual running brilliance DHP in the 2nd half and Folau in the first ball in hand metres in real terms would be negative as on every phase they go backwards as they execute 5 metres behind the gain line on each pass, even with their switches and "dummy" runners which surely offer no surprise because they are executed so deep. Then the big looped pass out to the wing, which due to the depth of the play may actually get back to the advantage line of the initial ruck. if the pass is received well, because I didn't see one well executed, and often the player is tackled behind the gain line, forced out or the pass is missed altogether thereby conceding possession. Larkham as an attack coach has shown noting at any level to justify his position as a test coach and the Wallabies attack is the most toothless of any international team.
3) Defence - I do not think the structure has improved, not at all, we have an improved application by some players, but the system itself sets them up to fail as they must burn everything running around doing nothing just shuffling positions trying to keep the system working. Its rubbish.
4) Set piece - the scrum is a shambles again. The second row got popped out of the scrum before the front row stood up . How does this happen, if they are tight and under their props? IMO it looked like they were playing games and not scrumming with power but trying to wheel and play silly buggers from the second row. Kepu, AAA and SIO are very good props, Latu and TPN excellent scrummagers, to see this crap again is very disheartening. If a couple of scrums can turn a game, having a dysfunctional lineout makes it impossible to compete in the game effectively. I counted three complete over throws in this game alone, and while they won most of their own ball they were never a threat to the opposition.
The Wallabies were never in this game and even the drawn score at half time and taking into account the probably penalty try for the Farrell shoulder charge, the Wallabies were flattered. There can be no doubting their endeavour and effort, the players are trying, but the systems mean the sum of the parts is less than its potential by far.
