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Deans out to banish mental scars
By Wayne Smith
October 25, 2008 IN a rare, expansive moment, coach Robbie Deans let slip how Australia intends to approach the five Tests they will play over the next five weekends.
"Plan A is to be physical," the wily tactician revealed. "Oh, and Plan B is to be physical."
Not a man given to verbal flourishes is Mr Deans. Succinct and to the point. And the point is that this is the toughest tour of Europe the Wallabies have embarked on, if for no other reason than no other northern campaign has opened with a Bledisloe Cup Test against New Zealand.
Then in quick succession follow Tests against Italy, World Cup finalist England, mercurial, rebuilt France and Six Nations champion Wales before the tour finishes with a Wembley showdown against a World XV dressed in the sheep's clothing of the Baa-Baas.
It's an itinerary to daunt the most robust of teams, let alone a Wallabies outfit that not so long ago has been guilty of shirking or at best attempting to deflect the physical confrontation.
"I haven't been privy to what's happened in the past and so it doesn't concern me," Deans said.
"But obviously that's an approach we won't be adopting because you just can't avoid it (the physical battle)."
No Australian rugby fan needs reminding of how difficult the All Blacks are, any time, anywhere.
But let's just give that difficulty a historic perspective. If New Zealand Tests were taken out of the equation, Australia's international winning percentage, going back through 485 Tests to a time before there officially was an Australia, would jump from 50.21 to 60.12.
Deans, it must be said, is not one for looking back and would quickly dismiss Australia's 45-105 win-loss record against New Zealand as having no bearing on next Saturday's hostilities at the Hong Kong Stadium.
True enough. But the stats don't lie and if the Wallabies are intent on setting the tone of their tour right from the outset, as hooker Stephen Moore indicated this week, then they could not have set themselves a more daunting challenge.
Plan A will need to be implemented to its legal limit. At which point Plan B needs to kick in.
Almost without exception, the Australians have not played a match since they let slip the Tri-Nations trophy and Bledisloe Cup in Brisbane on September 13, unlike the All Blacks who have been kept gainfully employed playing for their provinces in the national provincial championship.
It will get easier for the Wallabies after Hong Kong but only barely. Italy at Padua's Plebiscito Rugby Stadium should be the "gimme" of the tour. But the same was said before the 2006 campaign and then-coach John Connolly had to do everything bar kick over the drinks table at half-time in Rome to alert his players to the fact they were in grave danger of becoming the first Australian side to lose to the Azzurri.
Italy barely has a quality back to bless itself with but it does boast arguably the best scrum in Europe, even allowing for coach Nick Mallett's curious decision to leave Leicester powerhouse prop Martin Castrogiovanni out of his squad.
And do the Wallabies really need reminding of the trouble they have experienced against teams able to hide a host of other deficiencies behind a massive scrum?
Speaking of England, new coach Martin Johnson has lost about half of the team that so embarrassed the Wallabies in the World Cup quarter-final in Marseille a year ago.
While that has allowed the 2003 World Cup-winning skipper to put his own stamp on the side, there is one veteran of last year's cup campaign he would be desperate to see line up against the Wallabies at Twickenham on November 15, Andy Sheridan.
The massive Sale loosehead is under a fitness cloud with a shoulder injury, but if there is a single player in world rugby who haunts the Wallabies it is Sheridan.
He destroyed the Wallabies' pack at Twickenham in 2005 and he did the same in Marseille, even if he and England went about it in dubious fashion by collapsing the first seven scrums.
The man who scrummaged against Sheridan that day, Guy Shepherdson, has never played for Australia again and it remains to be seen what mental scars the other forwards still bear.
Deans, as ever, insists the past has no bearing on the present. Draw the lessons and then move on, is his motto. If props Al Baxter or Matt Dunning or any of the other Wallabies were minced by England in the past, then it simply means they have more to play next month.
"I doesn't concern me what the perceptions are," Deans said, "except that they now have a great opportunity to show they have matured."
Significantly, Deans has opted for five props in his touring party; a fair indication of where he expects the Wallabies to be targeted and a welcome sign he recognises the need to develop players who finally might get the Australian scrum back on the front foot.
At least the Wallabies know what to expect from England. They have virtually no idea what France might throw at them. It was different when Bernard Laporte was in charge but now Marc Livremont has taken over the reins as coach, Les Bleus have reverted to the France of old, mesmerising one minute, miserable the next.
The final Test of the tour, against Wales at Millennium Stadium, is, as always, cloaked in angst. If there is one thing Wales does even better than making life difficult for visiting Wallabies sides, it's making life harder for itself.
Deans' intention of giving game time and caps to all 34 players in the squad will test Australia's depth across the board.
Predictably, he has brushed aside the fact the nucleus of his Test pack will be missing, taking the optimistic view that this merely creates opportunities for the hungry young lions in the team.
Cursed by his versatility in being able to play both second row and blindside flanker, Mark Chisholm seemed destined to play out his career as a bench specialist.
However, with Dan Vickerman and James Horwill missing, Chisholm has the opportunity to establish himself as a frontline second-rower.
If this has all seemed a little forwards-focused, that's because the fate of the tour is in the hands of the Wallabies pack.
If the Wallabies are to put together their first successful northern hemisphere expedition since the 1999 World Cup, their forwards have to embrace the Deans plan. Actually, both plans -- A and B.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,...-23217,00.html
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