Loose Pass: Wallabies have become ‘mentality monsters’ while R360 profiteers suffer ‘mortal blow’
Praise for Joe Schmidt's Wallabies as R360 suffers setback.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with mentality monsters, the concept of cleaning past the ball and the demise of a threat…
Australia’s resilience builds ahead of World Cup
Not that I can in any way say what it has been like to be an Australian ever, but from the outside at least, the prospect of hosting the 2027 Rugby World Cup must have seemed daunting indeed for the normal Australian rugby fan.
Two years ago, almost to the day, the Wallabies had been beaten by Fiji for the first time (hardly a disgrace, but still an upset) and faced a do-or-die match-up with Wales, to whom the Wallabies crashed by a record score. They subsequently exited the World Cup at the pool phase for the first time ever, and there was little prospect of a turnaround.
Two years later and here we are. The Wallabies have beaten the world champions in their own backyard, then rallied from 14 points down to pip Argentina to the post. The team is smart, frequently falling behind while trying to work out the opposition’s weak points, but just as frequently taking strangleholds on games to clinch them.
Most importantly, it is starting to develop an aura. Even at 21-7, once Joseph Suaalii had scorched over for the first try of the second half, you felt the momentum shift. That Argentina were in a position to win is a testament to their own quality, but while the decision to go for the victory and not the draw was met with glee and joy from neutrals and fans alike, careful analysis of the game would show that the risk was much less than 50-50 for an Australia team that is just so good at finding a way at the moment. Once the Wallabies had decided they were going for it, it felt mildly inevitable.
Backing up the win from the weekend past would leave the Wallabies fully in contention for the 2025 Rugby Championship. But more notably, the last weekend in September and first of October see the Wallabies go head-to-head with the old foe from across the ditch, with the Bledisloe Cup on the line. It’s a trophy the Wallabies have not held for 23 years, and they’d have to win in Auckland to do it, something nobody has done for 31 years. If ever there was a right time for this team to show its newfound belief and nous…
How far past is past?
The current mantra at ruck time; indeed, a mantra that has been around for at least a decade, is that it is not enough to arrive at the ball, you have to clean your opponent past the ball. Not only does it notionally push the offside line back a metre or two, but it clears a better path for the scrum-half.
Both fair enough, but the concept, as so many do, is becoming both a point of competitive one-upmanship and boundary-pushing in terms of the law.
Springboks legend: ‘The biggest games need the best referee, and we didn’t get it’
The ‘pretty crazy’ All Blacks verdict on Richie McCaw joining them for Springboks rematch
In the build-up to South Africa‘s first try on Saturday there was a prime example. After Kwagga Smith’s rampage through the ragged All Blacks defence, Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezelu cleaned out Beauden Barrett from the ruck. His initial contact with Barrett was on New Zealand’s side of Smith’s body on the floor, while at no point did he actually step over Smith, rather he stepped around him. The cleanout finished a good five metres back from the ruck, almost three metres into New Zealand‘s in-goal area. None of these actions were legal to the letter of the law.
It is by no means only South Africa. Australia were pinged for starting clearouts past the ball-carrier a couple of times during the Lions tour, far fewer than the number of times they got away with it. New Zealand are good at it too; they are especially good at going to the side of the ball-carrier rather than over him – or ‘through the gate’ – and then clearing across, making it that much harder for counter-ruckers or jacklers to even consider such.
Do these things have a material effect? Probably not much in each individual instance. But allowed to flourish, it builds up a long-term picture of competitive advantage unfairly gained at rucks during a game, which absolutely would have a material effect, particularly for teams looking to physically dominate. It’d be nice to see referees pushing back against the boundary-pushers.
R360’s mortal blow?
It has been the consistent position of this column that the R360 bid to ‘disrupt’ (that means profiteer from) the global rugby landscape by creating a Formula One-style competition spanning eight weekends in all manner of exotic cities was a complete no-go.
So it was with a smug smirk that we read the report that the R360 administration was unable to answer a number of questions regarding player welfare, medical provision, respecting the existing calendar and anti-doping compliance and thus deferred lodging their application for official sanction from World Rugby for a year.
That means there’ll be no start in 2026 and with 2027 being a World Cup year… well, good luck with trying to usurp that. You have to wonder if the marketing and sales pitch guff being blown out by the R360 propaganda machine has enough hot air to last another three years without a single tackle being made in anger. And what about all the 30-somethings who already supposedly signed pre-contract agreements? Perhaps R360 will take place as an over-35 tournament?