Tactically, mentally and spiritually I think this Wallaby selection is a bad matchup for Ireland. At least in theory.
Sure, a lot of that is due to the presence of Will Skelton on the Australian bench. He has, after all, slapped the books out of the majority of this Irish pack’s hands over the last two seasons and left them scrambling on the floor with tears streaming down their cheeks or maybe I’m remembering something from my own childhood there. Awkward.
Anyway, the configuration of this Australian team has a few of the things that this version of Ireland tends to struggle with; a three-lock pack with proper size, great defensive lineout instincts and a Tighthead Lock Power Forward off the bench combined with a spiky, competent and aggressive outside backline (including a power winger) with a super solid and experienced half-back pairing which includes a goal kicker currently running at 90% off the tee.
That doesn’t guarantee an Australian win – or even a close game – but the Wallabies stack up well in areas that traditionally cause Ireland a few issues as of late and, with the power they have deliberately selected to come off the bench in the second half, that gives me pause.
From an Irish perspective, we have thrilled the Australian coaches and analysts by selecting the Prime Ireland side that the entire game has been studying since November 2021. Prime Ireland is that Irish team that you imagine in your head when you think of the green jersey because it’s the one that Johnny Sexton always starts in. Other Ireland is that team where there are new combinations, new units, and more jank than you can shake a stick at. Johnny Sexton rarely ever plays in those fixtures.
The difference between Prime Ireland and Other Ireland is almost always Johnny Sexton. When Johnny Sexton plays, that’s Prime Ireland. When Johnny Sexton is rested – different from being injured – that is Other Ireland. I’ve been looking around and the last time I can find Johnny Sexton playing behind anything other than a first choice or first choice + next in the depth chart because of injury pack is… probably Ireland vs Italy from the 2018 Six Nations where Ireland rotated CJ Stander and Cian Healy to the bench while we were also missing James Ryan. Johnny Sexton hasn’t played against a Tier 2 side outside of a World Cup since his test debut in 2009. The only team that comes close to breaking that streak is when Ireland played Japan in November 2021 but that was with a full-strength side to fully exorcise the ghosts of Shizuoka, which they duly did.
If Sexton is the alpha and omega of this Irish team – and that’s a rhetorical question because he has been since 2013 at the latest – then you can tell the importance of a game to Ireland by his usage. If he is in any way available and Ireland needs a win? Sexton starts. It’s the same with Leinster but it’s actually more pronounced with Ireland.
Sexton is our most valuable resource.
He is the captain, he is our best player, he is our goal kicker, he is our offensive overmind on the pitch and he’s a ruthless standards driver off the field. But we’re using him like he’s a motherboard that will never burn out.
If he is fit and not in the squad, it’s a game that Ireland has earmarked for “development”. Basically, that means it’s against a tier-two level opponent in November or on a Lions year summer tour. That’s the time when the #10s that aren’t Johnny Sexton get to start consistently but not with the rest of the Prime Ireland team. If Johnny is injured, like he was ahead of Ireland’s game against Argentina in November 2021, then you’ll see the “understudies” showing what they’ve learned with a full-strength side around them but those moments are fleeting.
So when you see an Irish side with new caps and new combinations put together for a game against Fiji in November, you’re basically hoping that they can do their best Prime Ireland impersonation against an opposition that is usually fairly disjointed themselves.
How did they do?
Well, Other Ireland struggled to put away Fiji with any kind of conviction because… what else could have happened. Prime Ireland runs a gameplan and attacking framework that is reliant on the kind of intricacy and ✨cohesion✨ you’d expect from a club side that trains with each other week to week for an entire season which, when you consider eleven of the starting XV this weekend are Leinster players, isn’t far off what Ireland are at this point.
Against Fiji, Ireland made nine changes from the side that played South Africa the week before, as you’d expect given the attrition of that contest. However, with those changes to the starting XV and replacements, you would expect a high cohesion framework to struggle and that’s exactly what happened.
Things that you can drill with the rest of the group week to week in camp went well enough – the lineout, for example – and Ireland’s 19 successful lineouts translated into 15 mauls, 14 of which were effective. That was the winning of the game. Ireland weren’t able to generate the same kind of return during phase play as you would normally expect from the 1.8 Pass Per Carry ratio we ran during the game. We were sweating hard against Fiji and not producing all that much outside of close range maul opportunities. Ultimately, when it came to cleaving Fiji open we were leaving a lot to be desired and only put scores on them consistently when they were down to 14 men at two points in the game and 13 men for a 10 minute spell where our forwards just couldn’t hang onto the ball.
But none of this was surprising. Expecting Other Ireland to perform like Prime Ireland is expecting too much of players who have been running opposition drills in camp for most of this year. Prime Ireland plays Wales, Scotland, France and England before playing three high intensity tests against the All Blacks and then another one against South Africa. Other Ireland fills in guys from the wider Prime Ireland bubble and then calls some guys who have played the Māori All Blacks, some guys who toured with Emerging Ireland and some guys who dropped in to play the New Zealand XV in the RDS. Some guys have all four jobs on the resume, some have three, most have two, a few had one.
Here you go guys, you know what to do.
If only it was that easy.
Australia will have been planning their work for this game based on what they know about Prime Ireland and, like a lot of other teams in the next year, they have theories as to how they can throw sand in our collective gear box.
Because Sexton is starting, you know this is Prime Ireland. He only togs out at #10 when that’s the case. My worry is that a 37 year old generational talent on which our entire framework seems to hinge in practice, if not in soundbites, is one mid-term injury away from retiring and we’ve got a World Cup that we’re favourites to win a year from now largely off the back of Sexton’s body of work.
What Top 4 side in the world have Ireland beaten without Sexton in the squad in the last two World Cup cycles? What if he picks up an injury a month from the World Cup during a warm up game and misses the tournament after he starts 4 out of 5 Six Nations 2022 games?
What do we know about any of the guys behind him at that point, other than they are players trying to ape what he does in a system designed around him?
This weekend against the Wallabies would have been a perfect opportunity to give Jack Crowley the week. Have him run the sessions, have him sit in the meetings as the guy, have him speak to the press, have him soak up the pressure and spectacle of it all and then let him hit the Wallabies with that Irish pack ahead of him and let’s see how he does.
If he does poorly, well then we’d know that maybe he’s not ready yet and we can cycle him in against Italy if he goes well for Munster in the interim. But what if he did really well? What if he was a five star guy and announced himself to the world as a top player?
What then? Maybe we’ll find out if Sexton goes down in the warmup or inside the first 50 minutes but if we’re looking at Crowley jumping up and down on the sideline with 75 minutes gone on the clock we’ll know that it was another opportunity wasted.
It’s a gamble, let’s just hope it pays off for us.
Australia: 15. Andrew Kellaway, 14. Mark Nawaqanitawase, 13. Len Ikitau, 12. Hunter Paisami, 11. Tom Wright, 10. Bernard Foley, 9. Nic White, 1. James Slipper, 2. David Poreki, 3. Allan Alaalatoa, 4. Nick Frost, 5. Cadeyrn Neville, 6. Jed Holloway, 7. Michael Hooper, 8. Rob Valetini
Replacements: 16. Folau Fainga’a, 17. Tom Robertson, 18. Taniela Tupou, 19. Will Skelton, 20. Pete Samu, 21. Jake Gordon, 22. Noah Lolesio, 23. Jordan Petaia.
Why are Australia a bad matchup for Ireland?
It’s not like they’ve been on a big streak this season or have looked particularly irresistible at any point. They’re even missing a few guys who almost certainly would have featured in this game – Samu Kerevi, Marika Koroibete, Rory Arnold, Quade Cooper, and James O’Connor to name a few – but there’s something about this Wallaby side that tells me they’re a good bit better than their current World Ranking might suggest.
In some ways, they are a bizarro version of Ireland. They play with a 3-2-X shape, they’re an aggressive breakdown side (too aggressive defensively because they concede most of their penalties there) and a dangerous side once they get a maul platform set.
The only difference is they don’t have a Grand Admiral level #10 or an elite level lineout.
Australia have the size and heft to play a relatively direct PPC game – 1.3 away to France a few weeks ago – and they are above average when it comes to their ability to win collisions in all zones.
In your own half, the Autumn Nations series average for getting over the gainline is 43.7%. What this says is that on average, most of the teams in the Autumn Nations Series get over the gainline in their own half on 43.7% of their carries.
Australia gets over the gainline 53.1% of the time in their own half. Ireland manages that 48% of the time.
In the opposition half, the ANS average is that teams get over the gainline 54.5% of the time but for Ireland, that number is 48%. For Australia, it’s 60.8%.
Australia are particularly effective at the end of a long sequence of kick transition. They will stay patient, they will kick as long as we do, and when they get a window to run it back, they play very directly off #9 and they’re excellent at earning penalties from this go-forward dominance.
You can see that 60.8% right there in that incredibly powerful sequence. Interestingly enough, Dave Rennie has selected Skelton and Tupou, the two standout carriers in this sequence, on the bench to use this physical impact – both in the loose and on a supercharged tighthead side of the scrum – in the second half of this game.
When they get into position, you’ll see a lot of direct forward play on a rough 3-2-X shape with the usual tip-on and screen passes you’d expect but most of Australia’s high PPC mostly comes from the width they get on their passing off #10 to their outside backs. The Wallabies use a unique outside back build in that they have, essentially, four slashing strike runners at 11/12/13/15 with a Power Winger at 14. When Australia force a compression or get a long kickback on a counter-transition sequence, they will let that ball fly.
This is part of the personality of this Australian backline without Kerevi. When you watch Australia on counter-transition, you will see 11/12/13 and 15 doing the majority of the movement with Hooper and Valetini filling in will do the majority of the movement on Australia’s version of counter-transition.
All of their backline are comfortable kickers on the run which adds to their ability to operate as an independent unit sliding behind the big heavy block of their very heavy tight five, half-lock and power forward with Michael Hooper filling in the gaps at the breakdown in the wider channels when the Wallabies get width on the ball.
So what’s the catch?
Well, their pass quality and decision-making off #10 and beyond is a weakness that reflects the chopping and changing they’ve had in that position over the last few years. Foley is competent at the very least, though, and he’s a willing, accurate kicker during phase play. I think this Wallaby side is very vulnerable to giving up an intercept to an aggressive blitz – look at Ringrose to snatch one of these – because they are often reduced (or enhanced) by the raw playmaking ability of their #10. Australia don’t really use a secondary playmaker in a traditional sense – much like Ireland, actually – but you’ll see Tom Wright and Hunter Paisami rotate in for a lot of passing reps as layered playmakers. This adds layers to their attack and operates under the same framework principles that Ireland follows.
Australia’s ability to get over the gainline regularly in that key zone between the 22s adds a real layer of threat to their attacking framework in combination with their counter-transition gameplay.
For me, the biggest issue that has undermined Australia’s results in the last few weeks (a one-point differential either winning or losing) has been the lineout. The Wallabies are running at 81% effective completion at the lineout since the Scotland game which, given how strong their maul is, really hurts their ability to build field position off the back of the lineouts produced by their counter-transition kicking game. That’s not good enough for a three-lock pack, especially with really good lineout targets like Nick Frost and Jed Holloway, who’s a really effective half-lock and their primary outlet.
If Ireland can get O’Mahony, Beirne and Ryan into the air on the Australian throw we will get results and it’ll keep their heavy forwards out of the game on the next two phases, especially with how Nic White uses his “reverse against the grain” ruck fringe attack for Jed Holloway or Rob Valetini.
Australia will be well aware that Prime Ireland is incredibly reliant on our lineout as our core attacking platform and that if you can take us below 85% completion rate, you’ll be far more likely to beat us. They have a really good defensive lineout that is all duck or no dinner. They have a higher-than-average percentage of lineout steals but as a consequence, they give up Effective Opposition position 87.2% of the time, which is higher than the ANS average of 85.8%. That 1-2% makes all the difference at this level and if they can steal around 10% of Ireland’s lineout possession here, that would be a great return and deny us the return that we rely on as part of our counter-transition game.
The game will come down to that. If Beirne/O’Mahony/Ryan can do the Australian lineout what everyone else has, we’ll probably win this game but if they can do what they do, this game could get very, very tight and their power off the bench in the forwards could well be decisive.
Forget about rankings, this has all the hallmarks of a dogfight.
