The Wallabies used to thwart Welsh dreams in last minute nightmares.
After the Florentine fizzle, Dave Rennie’s men are just hoping to play a good match at the Principality with ten or less penalties, no big injuries, and a solid start.
There is no discernible Rennie Doctrine. Only an instinct of a sort: to be big, to play on the line, to hit, and not give up. A stripped down vision of rugby; and it is playing to the level of the opposition, never imposing a style on any one match.
Meanwhile, Wayne Pivac is almost Rennie’s twin in fate. Their win record is similar, with catastrophic injury their only alibi and a peach of a World Cup draw their last friend.
The clubs in the valleys are bereft of funding and struggling in the URC. For every good omen, an ominous one cancels it out.
Once more, into the breach. Two teams who need each other find each other at the tail end of a long and frustrating season.
We can call this the middleweight fight. The undercard.
Australia:
The world of the Wallabies currently has six main characters acting in their series, and one absent star looming.
Quade Cooper is the Hollywood ten. He looks the part. He has the hands. He zips the ball like Finn Russell.
If he is healthy, he seems to be the man. But who is his seventieth-minute body double in an action movie in France? The timid Noah Lolesio? The big untested gunslinger Ben Donaldson? Or the forgotten Waratah, flame-haired Tane Edmed?
Tane Edmed (Photo by Getty Images)
In a Western, Quade would be the trick shooter smiling as he ends enemies. Lolesio the apprentice who is not made for this hard life. Donaldson the mystery man with the long rifle. Edmed may have to wait till the French denouement.
Donaldson has his moment this week: instead of a five-minute cameo in Italy, he has as much time as he can handle in Cardiff.
Lolesio is likely to enter the fray with a similar thankless kick as Donaldson faced, or may need to kickstart the engine. He has good moments, but does not command matches as a ten should.
At scrumhalf, Nic White has taken pole position, with scampering Tate McDermott and cool Jake Gordon sparring for backup. Gordon has not been good on this tour, but he has more upside in the types of matches Australia faces next year to get to the semifinals. He will need to show that: better decision making, a captain’s head, and pinpoint kicking.
Wales:
Alun Wyn Jones has seen it all on a rugby field. But this week, the eyes of a nation will be on him to show he is worth the spot. Up against two emerging Wallaby locks, he should be the best second rower on the pitch.
Beast Mtawarira was quoted this week to the tune that AWJ should hang up the boots and that may rouse the great man to Samsonian feats.
At Twickenham two heavyweights square off before a full house and despite five or six Springboks out due to the ‘window’ and both teams dinged up as one might expect, this still has ‘sequel’ appeal.
Eddie Jones says he rewatches the 2019 final from Japan in his head in 5G ‘all the time.’ Mako Vunipola and Jamie George declare the Bok pack still the gold standard of physicality.
Tendai Mtawarira has retired from international rugby. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)
The Irish and French forwards can vouch for that after this autumn.
In a way, you could view English Test rugby in 2021 and 2022 as a recapitulation of that loss: proving they have a strong front door, but forgetting the back door.
But the Boks have stuttered in the red zone with a malfunctioning maul and a revolving door at playmaker, missing their influential thirteen Lukhanyo Am. They will enter the match slight underdogs (less than three points at this time).
Who feels the pressure most?
England:
English media has piled the pressure on Maro Itoje; the Telegraph making the rather odd claim that Itoje can eclipse Eben Etzebeth as the best lock in the world this week by ‘dominating’ him. I imagine both men think very highly of each other but know they play a very different style and neither have ever dominated the other. Etzebeth, at this stage, is better rounded, but at the same stage of his career, was similarly focused on one side of the game (in Itoje’s case, defence; Etzebeth was not as skilled as he is now on attack and the kick chase).
Last week, Jack van Poortvliet succumbed to that familiar Kiwi method of putting opposition nines under the pump. He folded.
But here he is again: Jones will want to see a bounce back against another team that is known for targeting scrumhalves. Faf de Klerk has been one of the best halfbacks in England for years now; primarily, he takes his opposite number out of their comfort zone.
The farmer’s son will want a composed first half and delay the cavalry’s ride on.
Eddie Jones (Photo by Bob Bradford – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Jones himself also faces a bit of pressure, albeit nothing he cannot bat away with obscure sayings and obtuse platitudes.
Still, if his vaunted muscle men fail to subdue the Bok berserkers test yet again, or are mastered in the set piece, with Matt Proudfoot, he who led the Bok heavies to Japanese glory, as his lieutenant, he will start to have a faith deficit for next year’s semifinals if South Africa lies in wait.
Who else?
The entire English front row is under the pump. Literally.
South Africa:
Rassie Erasmus has effectively removed most of the pressure from his players with his shenanigans on socials, even if Ronan O’Gara quietly took over his title as coach most spanked in 2022 by World Rugby.
However, a young Stormer in his third Test will be under scrutiny. No. 8 Evan Roos passed his test in Genoa but Bok fans do not accept a mere passing grade. They want fire and brimstone, thunder and vinegar, and for Roos to ‘moer’ Billy Vunipola and any other English tackler who stands in his way.
More than any other non-Pacific nation, Bok fans enjoy the big clash and fend; Roos is hard to bring down at club level, but England is a good test. His temperament is said to have held him back till now. But one imagines he has a big green light for this one. Find a body clad in white and run over it, son.
A pulsating double header on the cards this week, and plenty of pressure pumps.
