Wallabies veteran James O’Connor has given insight into Australia’s attacking structure, stating the side were overplaying in their lacklustre performance against England when they were beaten 25-7 in London in their second end-of-year tour clash.
The Wallabies struggled to get a foothold in the match as they were hammered under an aerial barrage, while they failed to exit their own territory consistently as England pounced on the scraps and ran in four tries to one, condemning Australia to their fourth loss from their last five Tests.
Speaking on the the Good, the Bad and the Rugby podcast with former Wallaby Jeremy Paul and Former All Black Justin Marshall, O’Connor broke down the attacking areas where he believes Australia have been struggling most after Paul questioned why the Wallabies continue to fail to take the ball around the corner of the ruck.
“I think where we’re getting a little bit stuck is more that multiphase, when that three-phase focus doesn’t work, especially between the halfway zones,” O’Connor told The Good, the Bad, the Rugby podcast.
“I tend to feel like we’re overplaying a little bit and losing the ball, or we’re just going to the box kick and we’re not quite getting the result we want.
“Even when I was in camp we’ve spoken about this a lot: ‘What’s the solution? How do we build out from that? How do we get a better result from that?’ And again it’s a feel thing. It’s not just coming from your nine, it’s not just coming from your 10, you need your other ball players stepping up as well to be able to create.
“The teams that move their opposition around the best are the teams that are kicking on the edges; it’s your 12s, it’s your 15s, it’s your wingers. When we’ve been at our best we were throwing long balls out to Jorgensen who was putting the ball over, we even saw Potts [Harry Potter] put one in, so it’s a whole backline effort and the more we can shift that ball the better.
“I’m not the biggest fan of getting around the corner pattern. I love to use the opposition’s defence against them, so if I’m playing England I know they’re spreading out, I know they’ve got a heavy back-row; they’re six, seven and eight are going to want to get over the ball, I know they’ve got slower tight five, so I’m wanting to move them first phase and get to width or at least split their centres so they now have to either run 20 metres, or we’re going to skin them on the outside.
“There’s an artform to it, it just depends on who you’re playing and obviously we didn’t do it as well as we wanted to on the weekend, but I don’t think that’s to do with effort.”
Australia’s attack appeared especially clunky against England with Jake Gordon and Tane Edmed unable to unleash their electric backline options Joesph-Aukuso Suaalii or Max Jorgensen, with O’Connor saying a lack of physicality up front meant the team couldn’t get the ball wide effectively.
“I know everyone keeps talking about why don’t get Joseph the ball more, we’ve got so many electric outside backs, but I think fundamentally, that’s what we’re trying to do. But it’s just if you don’t win that first collision, or that second collision, when you’re trying to set it up, you can’t go around that corner cause they’ve got guys who’ve spread across the field, sending four in at one runner.
“It was a hard one to watch. You could see the boys were just a little bit defeated, the effort was there, they wanted it, they just couldn’t get into the game. The aerial assault that was coming; they found a weakness in our game, and they kept exploiting it.
“Did they move the ball well? I wouldn’t say they necessarily created more than us, they just got on scraps better. You can even hear them talk after the game; they just got three or four more men around the ball. Just look at [Henry] Pollock’s try, the ball bounces up and he was just there in the moment, cause that’s what they were preparing for, an aerial assault.”
O’Connor also defended young fly-half Tane Edmed who has recently found himself in the firing line, after he was elevated to starting No. 10 for the Wallabies’ last three outings.
“Firstly, if you want to play 10 in Australia for the Wallabies, you’ve got to have thick skin,” O’Connor joked. “Cause whenever anything goes wrong, you’re the first person who’s going to get blamed. I was told that early in my career… I probably didn’t have thick enough skin.
“If you look back over the last eight weeks every game we’ve lost who have they blamed? There’s probably six of us who’ve played 10.
“Tane’s not the reason why we lost that game. Did he play the best game he could have played? No he didn’t, but did he get opportunities to build into the game? There were things I would have taken some different opportunities that he took, I would have done a few things differently, but we have different games.
“In terms of his process, what I could see what he was trying to create, there was method to the madness. I don’t think he was helped either, as you could see we were clunky and unstructured, there were times where you couldn’t even see what pod system we had there. I’m sure Joe is going to fire the boys up about that, that’s not how he coaches or the way we play as an Australian team.”
It’s unclear whether O’Connor will rejoin the Wallabies set-up after he joined England Premiership club Leinster following the Rugby Championship, but he admitted he had been in contact with Joe Schmidt, and nothing was off the table.
“We’ve been speaking, but there’s no comms yet on coming in. If the call comes, I’ll be ready,” he said.
