The Cobus Visagie column

In the last of his series of World Cup columns for Planet Rugby, former Springbok prop Cobus Visagie discusses Sunday's final at Eden Park.

In the last of his series of World Cup columns for Planet Rugby, former Springbok prop Cobus Visagie discusses what the French need to do to compete with the All Blacks.

Follow Cobus on Twitter @ Drieman3

The All Blacks are setting new standards in international rugby

Australians across the globe may as well have exclaimed last Sunday with the words of the biblical character, Job, when he lamented at the depth of his despair: “the thing that I feared most happened to me.” Quade Cooper went from Queensland and Tri-Nations hero to the biggest liability in the Wallaby side, capitulating under pressure in two successive games during the knockout stages of the tournament. And it is no mean feat to be a bigger liability than the Aussie front row.

It is however strange that an evidently world class player can lose his grip on the game in a couple of months. Excepting the fact that opposing teams eventually caught up with him in a defensive sense, a further simple explanation could be that he was surrounded by a more dynamic and supportive management team under the guidance of Ewen McKenzie at the Reds. Hindsight is an exact science, but the leadership of Matt Giteau was sorely missed during the World Cup.

On Friday the Wallabies will take on a Welsh team that has won the admiration of the world with their 14-man effort against the French. The loss of the Welsh captain was massive from a defensive perspective and with most line-out options not available, it was a mess. But luckily the French did not even try to play the ball through the hands and the Dragons stayed in the game with ferocious individual and collective defensive efforts and far superior counter-attacking capabilities. Jamie Roberts and Shane Williams were immense during the entire tournament and Halfpenny was a revelation at 15. The man that personified the resurgence of the Welsh during the tournament was however Mike Philips. He is not the quickest distributor at scrum-half, but his style of power play and combative personality is very similar to other half-back generals like Joost van der Westhuizen and Justin Marshall.

Although I feel the French were lame and without any imagination in the game, it was still a mighty achievement from the Welsh to almost win a World Cup semi-final whilst playing with 14 men for 60 minutes. My only concern for them in their bronze medal final is the loss of Alan Jones at tighthead. I believe his injury 10 minutes into the game had a more detrimental impact on Wales than all the other issues. It weakened their scrum and resulted in a number of penalties that cost them dearly. Fortunately the Australians don't really have a pack of forwards that can exploit this weakness to the point that it will have a material impact on the game. The Welsh want the win more and it is still a mighty achievement for them to be bronze medal winners, which is not the case for the Wallabies, who came into the tournament with much bigger expectations. On the back of that and the fact that I believe they have a better management team in place that can motivate the troops to get up for one final battle, I tip Wales to win against all the pre-tournament odds.

Watching the French play against Wales after they lost Sam Warburton, was like watching a cat playing with a mouse with two legs. Initially it was slightly amusing and then it became quite disturbing. It was as if Les Bleus had picked up the Springbok playbook that they discarded on their way to their quarter-final match the previous week and decided that if there was an opportunity to kick, they will. They have a very experienced team, including many natural leaders and six Top 14 team captains. If you have watched the French Top 14 competition the last two years, you will realise that they played exactly like most French provincial teams play these days. The “laissez faire” French approach is long forgotten in the league and it has also been the main the reason for the rift in their national side. Marc Lièvremont wants the ball to move through the hands and play the classic French game with flair and width, but he has run into a brick wall of resistance from the senior players. They have been coached at professional club game that the high stakes game does not produce consistent returns. And in the professional world of business and investments, owners want “W's” on the league table.

The senior players took charge of the team the last two weeks and they played the game plan they wanted to play and the way they have been coached and got accustomed to play in the professional era. And they believe it is the only way they can guarantee a win for their nation. Play territory and play the percentages. Even Victor Matfield admitted last week that the same situation presented itself when Peter de Villiers took charge of South Africa and he admitted that no coach in the world could have convinced the senior players to play a different game plan from what they played under Jake White.
We will not see the “je ne sais quoi” element in the French approach in the way they stunned the All Blacks in the 1999 World Cup, because they don't have it in their rugby DNA any more. Everything has not changed however and the complete disdain of the players towards their coach was highlighted by the fact that they went out and celebrated their victory in style, against Lièvremont's clear instructions.

The bottom line is that no team would have been able to beat the All Blacks in the semi-finals the way they played against Australia. Although their attack would not rate among the best ever by an All Black side, their defence and especially their counter rucking in the back-line was at a standard not seen in international rugby ever. If they play like that, they are unbeatable. The only possible weakness they have is their line-out where they leaked a lot of easy possession to the Wallabies at the back of their line-out. It is the best possible attacking ball for a back-line and is also an area where the Boks have hit them hard in the past. It is however not a given and even statistically their line-out is above suspicion.

With the way that the All Blacks are counter rucking at the moment, my best advice to the French would be to keep their possession out of rucks and off the deck. They will have to play the percentages and the style they know and put pressure on the Kiwi line-out, especially at the back. They have good positional kickers that will have to keep the New Zealanders in their own half and challenge their line-out throws.

Unfortunately the All Blacks have shown that they know how to beat that style of rugby comfortably with the way they have put away the Boks in recent history. The more time I spend in this beautiful country and the more I discuss the game with locals, I can only see Auckland painted black Sunday evening!

Visagie earned 29 caps for his country