Cheeky emperor's naked strategy should be damned

Spiro Zavos
Tuesday, April 17, 2007

With just moments left to play in the match, the Waratahs forwards formed a huddle before moving into the line-out. Leading 26-13, their bitter match against Queensland could not be lost.

Here was the chance to end a frustrating match with a bang. I wrote in my notebook: "What unexpected move will the Waratahs pull out to set up a final try?"

A soaring line-out leap secured the ball for the Waratahs. The ball was passed back to Josh Holmes, who minutes earlier had thrilled the crowd by making a break from near his own try line. Holmes took the pass and … tamely booted the ball out.

So a game involving two poor teams ended with a deliberate whimper.

On Friday night, the Hurricanes got a needed bonus point by scoring a long-range try near full-time. You could say, perhaps, that the Hurricanes had an incentive to keep on playing attacking rugby. But two weeks ago, the Crusaders also kept playing running rugby, scoring on the last play of the match, even though they were more than 40 points ahead. Richie McCaw explained that the "boys were enjoying themselves, and wanted the game to go on and on". Where was the enjoyment of the game with the Waratahs?

There is something deeply wrong about a team such as the Waratahs, with a history of joyous, running rugby since 1882, behaving like the rugby equivalent of militant trade unionists - working to rule and knocking off at the earliest possible moment.

The negative attitude of the Reds was even worse. They kicked away their first six possessions of the match. It took 10 minutes of play before a pass to set up an attack was made.

It reminded me of the infamous moment from the 1880s when the Queensland captain was intent on setting up a first victory against NSW. He called to his players: "The ball's wet boys, don't pass." Except in this case, the ball wasn't wet.

The two teams were watched by 21,872 spectators , who suffered as the players tried their best (or worst) not to play any real rugby. The ongoing use of a restrictive game plan by Reds coach Eddie Jones (which worked for the first game of the season against the Hurricanes) must be condemned. It is nothing but blatant cheek for him to be scolding the ARU for not signing Andrews Johns to play rugby. Johns was never going to last in rugby until the end of the World Cup.

Jones has an obsession with rugby league tactics. His system of quick play-the-balls, one-off hit-ups, playing moves by numbers and incessant kicking for position has yielded 18 losses out of his past 20 matches in charge of the Wallabies and the Reds. It's time to declare that Emperor Jones has no clothes.

Ewen McKenzie, too, deserves the harshest criticism for the performance of the Waratahs. Last year, he got rid of his backs coach. This year, the backs clearly lack skills and have struggled to score tries. They are deficient in elementary aspects of play, such as catching and passing, and forming correct alignments. They can't seem to read play. Several times, for instance, Lote Tuqiri loitered around up-field instead of getting back in position for a counter-attack. The need for a backs coach to do something about this is obvious.

McKenzie's recruitment decisions have been as misguided as the Waratahs' negative try-not-to-lose game tactics. How he could lose Holmes but retain journeyman Brett Sheehan and injury-prone, too-small Josh Valentine is impossible to understand. With the biggest pool of players of any Super 14 franchise, the Waratahs are facing their worst-ever Super rugby campaign. They will need to win their next three matches for the coach to avert calls for his head. (And yet he is meant to be a "Favourite" for the soon to be vacant Wallabies top job???)

spiro@theroar.com.au