Wallabies head coach Eddie Jones. Photo / Photosport
Wallabies head coach Eddie Jones. Photo / Photosport
OPINION:
With the All Blacks having opened their season with two emphatic wins which have sparked a once-sceptical public into a new-found conviction about the potential of the national team, next week’s trip to Melbourne may now seem like it is more weekend getaway rather than serious rugby assignment.
TheWallabies, in stark contrast to their old foe, have entered 2023 with two defeats and mounting questions about whether it was a wise plan to jettison Dave Rennie as coach earlier this year and install Eddie Jones.
There are doubters as to whether Jones will go the distance on his five-year contract, but almost unanimous agreement that his arrival would spark an immediate and obvious lift in the Wallabies performance.
Everyone sat back and waited for the “Jones Factor” to be witnessed in South Africa and then against the Pumas, and the fact it hasn’t come has given the Wallabies a yet greater sense of vulnerability.
If it was hard to tell under Rennie which way the Wallabies were trending, Jones has at least killed the ambiguity by providing definitive proof the team is going backwards.
But the Wallabies, particularly now they are coached by Jones, will follow the formula of the best horror movies, and produce the scary parts when they are least expected.
The scene couldn’t be better set for Jones and his Wallabies to metaphorically jump out of the wardrobe in Melbourne and turn next Saturday into quite the nightmare for the All Blacks.
Rugby Australia weren’t ill-advised or reckless to go after Jones when he became available late last year when England fired him.
He’s a scrapper, a thinker and a coach with a depth of resilience. He’s going to install the hard edges the Wallabies need, and while the desired to-the-death mentality hasn’t yet materialised in their two tests so far, it’s going to arrive at some stage.
And it would be remiss not to imagine that the All Blacks are the catalyst the Jones regime has been waiting for.
He has personal history at shocking the All Blacks. He masterminded the Wallabies’ unexpected World Cup semifinal victory in 2003 and then did it again in 2019 when he was coach of England.
Former England coach Eddie Jones and All Blacks coach Ian Foster ahead of the test at Twickenham last year. Photo / Getty
Jones has that depth of rugby intelligence and fighting spirit to know how to scare the living daylights out of the All Blacks, and he also has access to Google, a quick search on which will tell him that the last time the Wallabies lost a home Bledisloe Cup test in World Cup year, was during his first coaching stint in 2003.
The All Blacks have dominated the Bledisloe since they won the trophy back in 2003, but it is a telling statistic that in 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019 they were beaten by the Wallabies in Australia.
When Jones, speaking after the Wallabies had lost to Argentina in Sydney last Saturday, said the All Blacks should watch out, he wasn’t juts fulfilling his brief to give the local media a theatrical soundbite to poke into a headline so rugby could grab some attention in a market dominated by the NRL and AFL.
He was fair and square warning the All Blacks that they had indeed, better watch out when they come to Melbourne.
And it’s a warning that All Blacks coach Ian Foster acknowledged his team needs to heed.
Having cruised past Argentina and the Springboks, Foster has been resolutely stoic in his reaction, seeing both wins as nothing more than pleasing steps on a journey towards the larger mission that awaits.
It’s obvious that he’s neither bought into the feel-good sweeping New Zealand nor the narrative doing the rounds in Australia of a lost and hopeless Wallabies, and is braced for a demanding encounter next week.
But for all that the All Blacks will be wary, and conscious of the severity of the challenge they face, so too will they want to find answers to a few of their own selection questions.
This is partly why they have struggled against the Wallabies in previous World Cup years – because they have wanted to see fringe or new candidates in action.
This year will be no different and it’s probable that Foster will want Sam Whitelock to play in Melbourne and also Luke Jacobson.
Potentially, it’s a game in which Cam Roigard might be given a cap off the bench and if he’s fit, Leicester Fainga’anuku will likely start.
Changes won’t be wholesale, but a little tinkering can sometimes have a bigger than expected impact and certainly in the past, the Wallabies have been able to make the All Blacks pay for using Bledisloe tests as a search for World Cup answers.
