The look of disgust on Kurtley Beale’s face said it all. Beale was hooked in the 63rd minute of the Wallabies’ 26-21 loss to Ireland in the second Test in Melbourne on Saturday night.
It wasn’t in the script. Beale, the team’s star playmaker, would usually be one of the last players Wallabies coach Michael Cheika would sub out of the game at such a crucial time, but his kicking game was off and he was not coping with Ireland’s rush defence.
Johnny Sexton ensures Ireland gain revenge on Australia to level series
The grim expression on Beale’s face as he walked off the field reflected the Wallabies’ angst and despair as their game-plan failed to deliver.
A week earlier Beale and Wallabies five-eighth Bernard Foley employed a tactical kicking game to steer Australia to a famous 18-9 win against Ireland in Brisbane. Beale and Foley were not always accurate with their kicking in Brisbane, but the plan worked. In Melbourne it didn’t.
In fact, it was difficult to work out what strategy the Wallabies were employing in Melbourne. It was hard to know if they changed their game-plan or just didn’t execute it as well as the week before.
For whatever reason, the Wallabies seemed to go away from their attacking cross-kicks to aerial maestro fullback Israel Folau, perhaps because they figured the Irish would be ready for it.
Beale and Foley failed to achieve any purchase with their kicking at all, which put the Wallabies under immense pressure. Giving the ball back to Ireland with poor kicking just played into their hands. It was like a boomerang of despair.
The Irish are the grand masters of the possession/territory game and they squeezed the living daylights out of the Wallabies.
Remarkably, the Wallabies outscored Ireland three tries to two and managed to put together some good passages of play with a limited amount of ball, yet the Irish always appeared to be in control of the game, at least after Beale scored the first try in the second minute.
The way Beale sliced through the defence to score made it look easy. The Test was going to be anything but.
Cheika was seeking consistency from the Wallabies, but this was always going to be difficult to achieve against a quality team fighting to keep the three-Test series alive.
Ireland coach Joe Schmidt almost gifted the first Test to the Wallabies by resting some of his senior European Cup-winning Leinster players, including playmaker Jonathan Sexton.
On Saturday night, however, the Irish were almost at full strength. The Wallabies not only had to back up their performance in Brisbane, but they had to do it against a significantly improved team. As has happened so often in the past, the Wallabies were not up to the task.
The sting was gone from the Wallabies’ defence. In Brisbane, the Australians made some big, rugby league-style dominant tackles, but the Irish were aware of the threat in Melbourne, and turned the tables on them in terms of physicality.
The biggest adjustment the Irish made was in relation to dealing with Wallabies back-rower David Pocock, who was immense in Brisbane. The Irish forwards continually ran the ball at the workaholic Pocock, forcing him to make tackle after tackle, wearing him out. They also bashed him – legally, of course – at every opportunity at the breakdown, reducing his influence on the game.
With Pocock negated, the Wallabies had no one else to play hard on the ball with the exception of back-up hooker Tolu Latu.
Cheika kept the same 23-man squad for the first time ever for the Melbourne Test, but there will be changes for the series decider in Sydney on Saturday night, some forced and maybe some unforced.
Veteran halfback Will Genia has a broken arm, while second rower Adam Coleman has a suspected fractured cheekbone. Cheika may consider starting Latu ahead of rookie Brandon Paenga-Amosa and recall backrower Ned Hanigan to give the forward pack more height.
It must be tempting to start rookie tight-head prop Taniela “The Tongan Thor” Tupou, who has made an enormous impact off the bench in the first two Tests, but Cheika would be reluctant to drop the experienced Sekope Kepu. Maybe Kepu could move across to loose-head?
Eddie Jones: ‘Defeat to South Africa was like a horror movie’
One of the most promising features of the Wallabies’ performance in Melbourne was that they finished the game so strongly with Tupou crashing over for a try in the 77th minute, which gave them a chance to steal the game, although they were not good enough to do it.
It has been a long season for the Irish, particularly the Leinster men, and the third Test could be a game too far. Or maybe Joe Schmidt has cannily reduced it to a two-Test series by resting his Leinster players in the first game.
Whatever the case, the Wallabies have an opportunity to beat the second-best team in the world and set themselves up for a shot at the Bledisloe Cup. But to do that they will need to bring the smile back to Beale’s face.