And so, September is upon us, and the age-old question rears its head: how do we beat the All Blacks?
It’s a tricky question, one that is not susceptible to any obvious or simplistic responses, and to come up with a strong answer much research and investigation is needed. Luckily I’ve done that research and investigation, and after digging into history, form, tactics, strategy, culture and psychology, I’ve come up with an answer that I think stands up to scrutiny. I can say without fear of contradiction that the secret to beating the All Blacks is: a time machine.
With this time machine, I calculate we can travel back to 1998 and win the Bledisloe Cup 3-0 to widespread jubilation.
That’s good, isn’t it?
But, look, there are certain realities that have to be acknowledged here, the first one being that this is as yet nowhere near long enough for a column, and I will not get paid unless I write some more words.
The second one being that Rugby Australia is on a tight budget, and it simply does not stretch to the bending to our will the very fabric of reality itself. So we’re going to need a more economical plan to beat the All Blacks.
One extremely cheap way would be to wait patiently until New Zealand sinks into the ocean. I’m not saying it’s a quick fix, but it would be devastatingly effective. But is there a balance to be found between time travel and geologically-scaled patience? Perhaps.
We need to focus on the main areas of advantage that the All Blacks have over the Wallabies. These can be boiled down to: a) forwards; b) backs; c) the bench. If we want to get more granular, we could label them as: i) speed; ii) strength; iii) tackling; iv) ball skills; v) scrums; vi) lineouts; vii) rucks; viii) mauls; ix) kicking; x) fitness; xi) intelligence.
Now, that’s enough advantages to fill an entire cricket team, and if they did, that cricket team would beat our cricket team, especially if our cricket team was full of rugby players, and filling a cricket team with rugby players is exactly the sort of thing Rugby Australia would probably do, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea because god knows getting them to play rugby isn’t working out. But I digress.
The point is, we can’t fixate on the things that the All Blacks are better than the Wallabies at. We need to look at the positives, and identify the advantages we have over New Zealand. For example: a) we have bright, colourful jerseys; b) our beaches are nicer.
It’s not much to work with, I’ll grant you. But there is one essential truth that should give the Wallabies hope this weekend, and that truth is this:
The All Blacks are almost certainly going to annihilate the Wallabies.
Why is this a positive? For the simple reason that so overwhelming is the expectation that New Zealand will leave a small, sad, goldish smear on the Accor Stadium turf this Saturday, that anything less than that will actually represent a profound humiliation for the men in black.
(Photo by Dave Rowland/Getty Images)
Consider the feelings on either side of the ditch if Australia gets within 30 points of New Zealand. On this side, jubilation that we have a team that is capable of competing with the All Blacks at a level above dark comedy. On that side, brutal recriminations for a team that not only can’t beat South Africa, but can’t even inflict permanent psychological scars on the Wallabies, the Charlie Brown of world rugby.
And THAT is how we beat the All Blacks: not by actually winning the game, but by losing the game by a margin small enough to fall short of utter disgrace.
OK, you say, but that’s kind of easier said than done, isn’t it? If these Wallabies knew how to avoid humiliation, we’d be living in a very different universe right now.
But I believe it can be done, as long as the Australian team realises that their goal is not to win, but to damage their opponents’ self-esteem. As long as victory is not an option, we can concentrate on frustration. That means cynical penalties. That means time-wasting. That means collapsing scrums. That means faking injuries.
The aim of the game must be to reduce the amount of time the ball is in play to the absolute minimum, giving the All Blacks as little opportunity to score points as possible. In addition, we must stretch the duration of any breaks in play to the limit, so our own boys have an opportunity to catch their breath, in order to be fit enough to deliberately give away a penalty at the next ruck. If that means hiding all the balls so that it takes 15 minutes to find them during which time our front row can have oxygen treatment, so be it.
If Australia can effectively waste time, disrupt play and kick every ball they get to the back row of Accor Stadium, then I think we can reasonably expect New Zealand to score a convincing but highly unsatisfying victory, and that is the absolute best-case scenario.
But wait, you say: isn’t the best case scenario that our spoiling tactics frustrate the All Blacks to such an extent that they lose their focus, start making mistakes themselves, and in an exquisite reversal of fortunes, the Wallabies actually WIN?
God, NO!
We must AT ALL COSTS avoid winning this Test match. Beating more highly-rated opponents never works out for the Wallabies. Look at what happened in Argentina. They won a Test, and next game, a record thrashing. And the history of the Bledisloe Cup bears this out even more starkly. Over the last two decades, Australia has quite often snagged a win against New Zealand, and every single time they do, they are obliterated in the next game. Because unless you’re South Africa, beating New Zealand is like shooting a bear with a potato gun: all it does is rile them up and set them thundering towards you, jaws agape and claws ready to disembowel.
No, no, no: beating the All Blacks is the worst thing the Wallabies can do. In fact, if by miraculous chance they find themselves ahead late in the game, it’s imperative they start throwing intercept passes and shoulder-charging opponents in the head in front of their own posts. Winning this week only guarantees ultimate catastrophe next week.
Win a Ziggy BBQ for Grand Final day, thanks to Barbeques Galore! Enter Here.
But losing “gallantly” – ah, that provides a prime opportunity to lose gallantly AGAIN, next week. And TWO gallant losses to the mighty All Blacks? With this current Wallabies squad that would be the equivalent of the 1984 Grand Slam and the 1991 World Cup all in one day. Which, again, would require a time machine, so let’s just stop going down that blind alley, shall we?
No, much like a jockey in a brain teaser, the only way for the Wallabies to win this weekend is to lose. If we do it right, we can restore pride, regain a little confidence, and laud our heroes in gold as, if not sporting champions, then at least the ultimate exponents of cynical bastardry going round.
If they can’t manage that, then wake up when September ends.
Ben Pobjiehttps://https://ift.tt/opYZdAL only way for the Wallabies to win against the All Blacks is to lose
Post a Comment