It is the tactic Michael Cheika once banned at the NSW Waratahs and has restricted at the Wallabies, but it may well be just the strategy Australia will need to succeed in Test rugby this year, particularly against Six Nations champions Ireland.
Tactical kicking was taboo when Cheika coached the Waratahs and he has kept kicking to a minimum while in charge of the Wallabies.
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Maybe it was Cheika’s background playing running rugby at Randwick; maybe it was the influence of rugby league or perhaps it was playing to the Sydney crowd, who have a strong distaste for kicking. Whatever the reason, Cheika has always strongly emphasised playing with the ball in hand, which was part of his team’s identity, as he likes to put it.
Ironically, however, Cheika’s old team the Waratahs showed that tactical kicking does indeed have a place in Australian rugby, in their remarkable 51-27 win against the Melbourne Rebels in equatorial conditions in Sydney last Sunday afternoon.
Waratahs playmakers Bernard Foley and Kurtley Beale employed cross kicks and high balls to tall outside backs such as Israel Folau and Taqele Naiyaravoro with devastating results. The most surprising aspect of the Waratahs’ aerial assault against the Rebels was that it took them so long to adopt the tactic.
Much was made of Folau’s shift from fullback to the right wing for the Rebels game, but Folau had played on the wing in the back end of all of the Waratahs’ previous three games this season to accommodate Bryce Hegarty coming off the bench to play fullback.
In these games against the Stormers, Sharks and Jaguares the Waratahs may have sent the odd cross-kick Folau’s way, but nothing like the concerted approach against the Rebels with both Foley and Beale booting the ball with purpose.
Neither Foley nor Beale are noted tactical kickers, but together they got the job done. It is something Cheika and Wallabies attack coach Stephen Larkham will need to consider when they devise Australia’s tactics for the Irish series in June.
Under the new ruck laws which favour the attacking team by reducing the contest for possession at the breakdown, teams are able to hold onto possession for longer periods of time. If you can control possession, you can control the game.
No team in world rugby has adapted to the new laws better than Ireland, who ground Eddie Jones’ England into the Twickenham turf last Saturday on their way to completing the European Grand Slam.
As a result of the new ruck laws, teams are committing fewer players to the breakdown and fanning out to create brick walls in defence in phase play. Ireland five-eighth Jonathan Sexton’s tactical kicking was crucial to the Irish Grand Slam because it disrupted the defensive line.
Similarly, the Wallabies will need Foley and Beale to employ an attacking kicking game, a tactic that has not been wholeheartedly embraced in Australian rugby since Will Genia and Quade Cooper directed the Queensland Reds to the Super Rugby title in 2011.
Kicking the ball a lot may go against the grain of running playmakers such as Foley and Beale, but attacking kicking, or contestable kicking, is designed to regain possession to re-launch attack with the ball in hand. And unlike the Waratahs, Cheika would not need to move Folau from his preferred position at fullback to the wing to adopt this tactic.
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It worked for the Waratahs against the Rebels, but in previous games Folau became almost invisible after being shifted to the wing. In the Waratahs’ 24-all draw with the Sharks in Durban, Folau touched the ball 15 times at fullback in the first 51 minutes of the game and only once on the wing in the last 29 minutes, highlighting the fact he can be taken out of the game on the wing.
The last thing Cheika would want to do is shut out the Wallabies’ most potent attacking weapon. With the Wallabies, Folau would be better suited at fullback. There he has a multitude of sources from which to attack and interchange with the right winger for cross-kicks and the like.
Where Folau plays is less important than Cheika recognising that a once forbidden tactic could hold the key to unlocking the defence, and help the Wallabies do what he most wants them to do – attack.