How do we know we are doing well? Are we doing enough? Is there a light at the end of the tunnel or is that a reflection from our own mirror?
Fateful questions for any enterprise, particularly an underfunded startup or a rescue effort in the face of massive natural disaster.
The Wallabies are just a rugby team. This is not life or death even if there is fear of insolvency but for the blessing of being fed to the Lions next year.
The trial run is this November when new look Australia tests itself against England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland before those four Home Nations join forces next year for a tour expected to be a proper demolition job.
The British and Irish Lions have a better record on tour to the South than any of their constituent parts, even if they do not rule all.
For example, the Lions have played in South Africa 49 times and won 18 times (37%), in New Zealand 7 of 41 (17%), and an impressive 17 of 23 times (74%) in Australia.
Joe Schmidt. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
By contrast, Scotland has won three of 12 Tests played in Australia, Wales only once in 14 attempts, Ireland five of 16, and England eight of 23, for a grand total of 17 wins (or 26%), an almost inverse picture of Lions glory Down Under.
Joe Schmidt will want to do more than earn moral victories up North or congratulate his team on “one good half” as he (rightfully) did after each Bledisloe Cup match this year.
He needs the Wallabies to learn to win. Close matches. Rough Tests. Perhaps even learn how to pull an upset by winning ugly.
How many wins and what kind of losses are acceptable?
Gone are the days, gone with the luckless Dave Rennie who faced an injury list unparalleled but whose hard-running, big-tackling team still took Ireland and France to the wire, when one loss (even to Italy) is a sackable offence.
Schmidt’s team is immune from one-game judgments, courtesy of the 2023 World Cup benchmark. A full Home Nations tour is exactly what Australia needs: low expectations, high rewards on offer.
First up is England, the lone Northern semifinalist in France, a hard nut team full of power and pace, employing a bit of a Springbok-rush defence, and led by clever veterans like Jamie George (93 caps), Maro Itoje (84 caps) and Ellis Genge (58 caps), bolstered by brilliant youngsters (21-year olds Immanuel Feyi-Waboso on the wing and loose forward Chandler Cunningham-South, 23-year old hard man George Martin, and the two mighty Fins, Baxter and Smith who are just 22). The kick-off is late afternoon and the hosts will be roaring.
Australia will be reminded of their two Rugby Championship games against South Africa when facing a repaired chariot at Twickenham. The English pack, when fully loaded, still has a bench to rely on which is just as powerful as Australia’s starters if devoid of overseas locks. They are rightfully ranked fifth in the world and at home would be favoured to handle Australia’s less robust pack and slower backs.
A loss on November 9 would be far more trouble for Steve Borthwick than it would be for Schmidt: the goal would be to stay in the fight till the end and starch up the leaky Wallaby defence.
However, the Wales fixture eight days later shapes as the must-win of the tour. A loss in Cardiff would represent a large backward step.
In July, the Welsh were well handled in Sydney (25-16) and Melbourne (36-28), even if defensive frailties were bad omens. No. 11 Wales is ranked well below the No. 10 Wallabies (3.28 points in the World Rugby scale).
Losing to Warren Gatland’s rebuilding squad would be a bitter pill. Thus, we can say at least one win is essential to avoid a failed tour.
But what of Scotland? If the Wallabies have a respectable loss in London and a comfortable win in Wales, how should the battle in Murrayfield be graded a week later?
By then, niggles may have cost Schmidt a couple of key players, but the same is true of the Scots, who will have faced the Boks a fortnight earlier.
(Photo by Andrew Matthews/PA Images via Getty Images)
Scotland is a good matchup at this stage of the Wallaby rebuild. A win over them will see a ranking rise, the last two times they have played there were only one or two points in it (15-13 for Scotland in 2021 and 16-15 for Australia in 2022) with low scorelines.
An early afternoon kickoff will not rule out bad weather. This match shapes as the bellwether contest.
Middle English gave us the word ‘bellwether’ (belleweder) meaning a castrated ram with a bell around his neck followed by the flock: the one that takes the lead or in modern usage: indicator of trends.
Thus, it is not so much notching a second win or any second win which makes the result of this fixture illustrative of Schmidt’s progress. In fact, it is this very matchup that will tell the tale.
Scotland is seventh in the world at the moment, a rank Australia could and should see itself in rightfully if playing good Wallaby rugby: quick and decisive, fit and resilient, footballing and clever.
The average score in Scotland between the two nations is 21-15 to the Wallabies. The style of play is very much like facing slower, lighter All Blacks with about the same percentage of Saffa accents as the North Shore of Auckland.
(Photo by Steve Welsh/PA Images via Getty Images)
The Wallabies will get better when they do not diminish the vitality of a win versus a loss. This is a Test they will circle as the barometer of their advance from that awful night in Lyon a year ago.
Putting both Wales and Scotland to bed in their home stadia would send a loud message ahead of the Lions tour that Aussies will fight.
The last weekend of the tour in Dublin is a pure no-pressure hit out. A win would send tectonic ripples through the rugby world. In 2022 at the Aviva, Dave Rennie’s Wallabies lost 10-13 in front of 50,000.
Jordan Petaia and Bernard Foley scored all the points, so any glory will need to come from new characters, but Schmidt will certainly know all the old Irish players.
Two from four and stay in the fight in the losses. This is acceptable. This is what should be considered good. Lose to Scotland or get blown out by England and the path to sending the Lions home empty-handed is not clear.
Harry Joneshttps://https://ift.tt/FtR8Nvp tour KPIs: How many wins and what kind of losses are acceptable – and the bitter pill Joe must avoid
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