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By Wayne Smith
March 17, 2008
SERIOUSLY, was that a wink Matt Giteau gave to the television cameras late in the Western Force's match against the Blues in Albany?
Sure looked like one and who could have blamed him, with the Force just minutes away from sealing its first win on New Zealand soil. But still, it was an incongruously boyish moment in the context of Giteau's astoundingly mature game, a throwback to his days as Kid Dynamite.
Make no mistake, the Kid ain't a kid any more. The baby fat is long gone. The features are sharper now, harder somehow. And the stubble looks like it belongs where previously it seemed vaguely ridiculous.
Giteau always has had a Peter Pan quality about him, which presumably comes from having played for Australia while basically still a child. But NeverNever Land is receding. The boy has become a man and the man is fast becoming the most dominant individual player in rugby.
Exaggeration? Let's look at the other contenders. The IRB's player of the year, Bryan Habana, doesn't control matches. He ignites them, but his influence is limited and while he is capable of conjuring tries out of nothing, mostly he is dependent on others, most notably Fourie du Preez, creating opportunities for him.
Du Preez himself would rank high on the list. A wonderfully creative half-back, tough, fast, unselfish and blessed with such a varied kicking game that South Africa were able to carry a limited kicking five-eighth like Butch James all the way to a World Cup victory. Yet, as the Reds showed this weekend, even du Preez can be muted if the bash'em-up boys in front of him are themselves monstered.
Richie McCaw? Inspirational, courageous, the best ball-thief in the game. But he doesn't run things. That's the job of another contender, perhaps the one player who stands between Giteau and the summit, New Zealand five-eighth Dan Carter.
Critiquing Carter, like any of these players, is akin to finding flaws in the Mona Lisa, but there are questions about his ability as a tactician. Certainly the Wallabies have long believed it was Aaron Mauger who was the brains of the outfit, the man who made the bullets that Carter fired with sniper-like accuracy.
Noticeably, when Mauger was left out of the line-up for the quarter-final against France in Cardiff last year - the selection blunder of a generation - Carter wasn't able to turn the tide and finished the match on the bench.
Granted, Giteau wasn't able to turn the tide in the Wallabies' quarter-final either, but then he wasn't playing at five-eighth. At inside centre, his influence was significantly reduced.
By the time the ball had worked its way back through a browbeaten pack, been cleared by George Gregan and on-passed by Berrick Barnes, about the only option open to Giteau was to decide whether he wanted to be buried by Lewis Moody or Andy Farrell.
These days Giteau is a 10 and while that doesn't imply perfection in any Bo Derek kind of way, it does mean that as a five-eighth he has perfect freedom to call the shots for the Force as he sees fit. It's a responsibility he is growing into right before our eyes.
In the first half against the Crusaders and again, more pertinently, in the second half against the Blues, Giteau was mesmerising. It takes talent, time and a lot more besides for a player to be recognised as truly great, but once there, the fringe benefits are to die for. One is the opposing teams will constantly over-read and over-analyse your play.
That's where Giteau is at. Against the New Zealand powerhouses, he had moments of pure magic and was all but untouchable. Yet such is the aura he now projects, even his bland plays caused palpitations in the defensive line. You could almost read the bubbles: "Hell, I can't see any real trouble here, but it's Giteau and he's always up to something so I'd better hold off, just in case". Which of course meant that Giteau really was up to something.
Suddenly every member of the Force backline is playing like an automatic Wallabies selection, none more so than winger Drew Mitchell who has done a fair bit of growing up himself over the past 12 months. With Giteau, drifting, feinting, changing angles, stepping and sliding, the Force backs are like IT investors back in the late 1990s, opportunities are opening up faster than they can capitalise on them.
It's not just Giteau's running game that has matured. His kicking out of hand and off the tee are now world-class. For much of the past decade, the Wallabies basically sacrificed a kicking game, and the easy yardage it can offer, to take full advantage of Steve Larkham's unique passing skills.
But now, with Giteau set to make the 10 jersey his own, the Wallabies can have it all. That's not a prospect likely to bring a smile to the face of Graham Henry or Peter de Villiers.
The caveat in all of this is that the experimental law variations could almost have been written with Giteau in mind, and it remains to be seen whether he can generate anywhere near as much momentum under the old laws which are likely to resurface for the domestic Tests. But between us, I suspect he will. Great players always adjust.