by The Wallabies are just over a week away from starting their Grand Slam tour of the UK and Ireland and excitement, at least on the Australian side, is building nicely.
There has been some shade about the Wallabies in recent months, with England halfback Ben Youngs even saying the British and Irish Lions tour should find a new destination in 2025.
Sticks and stones, but the fact is that the Wallabies are on the rise in the first year after a horror World Cup and the first year of a new World Cup cycle.
The Lions’ tour is a double-edged sword for Joe Schmidt and Australian rugby: on the one hand, the commercial profits of the big event help keep the game afloat, but on the other hand, they shorten the timetable for improvement for a team in its infancy.
Nevertheless, the die was cast and Schmidt and his group of experienced trainers knew what they were getting into.
This tour is an opportunity to bring their vision together for the final dress rehearsal before the Lions tour in July.
Even though the Wallabies are well behind some of their ‘home nations’, they are still a team full of talent, work ethic and X-factor and have a good chance of causing a few surprises.
Preparation is crucial as each team has very different styles and it is therefore crucial to adapt their game plan to suit each opponent.
England November 10th – Allianz Stadium, “Twickenham”
Key players: Joe Marler, Dan Cole, Maro Itoje, George Martin, Chandler Cunningham-South, Sam Underhill, Ben Earl, Marcus Smith, Immanuel Feyi-Waboso.
Steve Borthwick’s team is built on direct forward play, goal-oriented kicking and powerful defense.
Their recently departed defense coach Felix Jones installed a fast and powerful rush defense like the one he coached with the Springboks during their back-to-back World Cup victories.
Their game plan is traditionally English, simple but effective, and Borthwick is now starting to get a bit more out of his players.
The entire team is of high quality and it will be difficult for the Wallabies to keep up with the English in their usual direct style of play.
Marler and Cole are the glue that holds the English scrum together. Even though they rarely travel at the same time, they are the older heads who stabilize the ship.
Itoje is the lineout general whose on-field head-scratching is world-class, while Martin is the muscle man.
He plays a similar game to former England captain Courtney Laws; The young Leicester Tiger is brutal and has a big engine.
The Wallabies will do well to keep the locking duo as quiet as possible.
The relaxed striker trio is full of power, attitude and work rate. Whoever is selected in the Wallabies’ backline at Twickenham will have a lot of work ahead of them.
Ultimately, if the Wallabies can’t find a way to slow down England’s ball, Smith will play above them.
His fleet-footed play will keep the Wallabies going and there is no doubt Feyi-Weboso’s speed and power will keep them going under the posts.
Wales November 18th – Millennium Stadium, “The Principality”
Key players: Dewi Lake, Adam Beard, Jac Morgan, Taine Plumtree, Tommy Reffell, Aaron Wainwright, Gareth Anscombe, Nick Tompkins, Rio Dyer, Cameron Winnett.
Wales are the team the Wallabies have had the most contact with over the last two years, having played them twice in July and once in the World Cup.
Their captain Lake will lead from the front, a nightmare for the men in gold given how easily Lake and his pack handled a handful of tackle attempts in July.
The addition of Beard, who missed the July testing, will improve the efficiency and strength of their bat.
Unless Geoff Parling and his men have sorted out their defensive problems, the set piece could completely determine the outcome.
The back row will not take a step back, especially Plumtree.
The hulking backrower is the hard man, while Reffell tackles anything that moves, wreaking havoc at every mishap.
Morgan has been plagued by injury and sidelined over the last 12 months, but the young man, who has already captained Cymru, is tough, a complete player who is a threat in both attack and defence.
Wainwright is their striker, whose runs left the Wallabies battered and injured in Sydney and Melbourne.
Anscombe’s recall to the squad brings calm and composure to the game-winning teams and requires the Wallabies defense to be alert.
Tompkins will play the hard lines to give Anscombe space to play the ball while also creating space for the two wing whippets, Dyer and Winnett, to run wild.
Scotland November 25th – Scottish Gas Murrayfield, “Murrayfield”
Key players: Finn Russell, Darcy Graham, Sione Tuipulotu, Huw Jones, Blair Kinghorn, Duhan van der Merwe.
The Scots are led by Melbourne-born Sione Tuipulotu, who has been given the captain’s badge after successive years of impressive form and development.
Scotland are a team that simply goes about their business, leaving the overall planning to the attacking genius of Gregor Townsend and his right-back Russell.
The maverick playmaker and his coach haven’t always been good friends, but when their relationship is good, rugby is great and Russell can make the impossible possible.
The Wallabies could be Scotland’s best team as they set their sights on a surprise win at home to South Africa two weeks before their clash with Australia.
The Scottish strikers have a simple but crucial task; Get Russell a clean ball.
Should the Scots succeed in this mission, Russel will play at the forefront of the Wallabies’ passive defense, unleashing the lethal combination of his captain and Jones known as ‘HuwPulotu’.
In the outfield, Graham is the greyhound while van der Merwe is a rhino, both equally deadly for different reasons.
The Wallabies will want to keep this game exciting and attack the Scots head-on in the forwards, in phase play and from set pieces.
Keeping runners in Russell’s channel can frustrate the playmaker to the point of throwing him out of the game.
Ireland December 1st – Aviva Stadium, “Lansdowne Road”
Key players: 1-15.
The world number one is the best trained team in the world and when Schmidt faces his old team he will be jealous of their ability to master the basics.
It seems difficult to imagine a situation where the Wallabies would find a weakness in the Irish defense, let alone be able to expose it.
Ireland rely on a fast defense and as shown against South Africa and Argentina, it is the defensive system that the Wallabies struggle with the most.
Ireland’s tackling and rucking ability, coupled with the speed of their rush D, will overwhelm the Wallabies unless, like South Africa, they can secure gainline meters in tight spaces to mitigate the rush.
While the Irish defense will be strong, their attack will be efficient and fierce.
The layers in their attack are likely to pick apart the passive Wallabies line.
Their standards are world-class, the talent and accuracy in the team is impeccable, they deliver lightning-fast attacks from the base, the power of their centers (of which there is hardly any wealth) and the technical excellence of their back three makes them almost impervious to anything that comes their way Wallabies have been able to find so far.
The Wallabies need to take them on in the scrum, step deep and out and find a new kit for their defence.
The Irish are technically sound but lack the raw power of the Springboks, an area the Wallabies can aspire to.
Another aspect to consider is that even if foreign players Will Skelton and Samu Kerevi provide key performances throughout the tour, they will have returned to their clubs by the time the Wallabies visit the Emerald Isles.
If the Wallabies can find a way to play 80 minutes of the rugby they played in the second half of the first Bledisloe Test or the first half of the second Argentina Test then they have a chance of making a splash up north .
Schmidt must show confidence in his players, and they, in turn, must imprint his systems into their brains so they can go beyond the basics and add their own flair to the game plan.
As great as a Grand Slam would be, this tour is about showing that the lessons of the year so far have been learned and implemented. If the process is followed, the results will be achieved.
