FEATURE How can fraying Wallabies maul handle Springbok brawn?

“In cycling, the pain bank must be full before you can start drawing interest. And in the mountains, you better be ready to make withdrawals.” Those are the words of cycling commentator Bob Roll. The real Tour de France does not begin until you reach the mountains of the Alps or Pyrenees, until you weave between the 21 hairpin bends of the Alpe d’Huez, or hit the final wall on the Col du Tourmalet. That is when the pain shows you who you truly are.

Australia has only two more ‘trial matches’ until the real work begins in just over three weeks’ time. The Queensland Reds will play Wales at Lang Park on Friday, with the Wallabies fronting up to the best the northern hemisphere has to offer outside the Six Nations – Georgia – the following day.

The ascent will become significantly steeper for Joe Schmidt’s charges after that. The weather changes will become more alien and less forgiving, and the pain-elastic will be tested to the limit. If it snaps, all the ground Schmidt’s men have covered in their first three games will be lost and the Wallabies will be dropped, as the peloton of global rugby leaders speeds past without so much as a glance.

The world champion Springboks are coming to town for a double-header at the Suncorp in Brisbane, moving on to the Optus Stadium in Perth the following weekend. They will constitute the first real test of the progress the Kiwi mastermind has made. The Wallabies completed a 2-0 series sweep of Wales in Melbourne at the weekend, winning 36-28 and scoring five tries to four in the process.

It is a pleasing result for Schmidt, but the pleasure would have been circumscribed by multiple concerns. Compared to the quality and intensity of the series being played out in South Africa and New Zealand, this was strictly second-division stuff. As the Wallaby head honcho admitted, reading in between the positive soundbites after the event, “I am relieved, I will definitely say I am relieved. But boy, are we going to have to be better than that.”

One of the tactical curiosities of the two evenly-poised series played out between South Africa and Ireland, and New Zealand and England, was the sum total of zero tries scored directly from the driving lineout over all four matches. The closest any of the four nations got was a lineout peel midway through the first period of the opening Test in Dunedin, with England’s Maro Itoje scoring on a short-range plunge on second phase.

South Africa’s ‘new’ head coach, and éminence grise at the 2023 World Cup Rassie Erasmus offered a Springbok version of the reasoning behind it:

“Our lineout maul? We don’t want to maul against Ireland because Ireland are very technical at the mauls and [Irish second row James] Ryan has a very unique way of stopping mauls.

“Not a lot of teams get a lot of result from mauling, so mauling wasn’t in the plan of our game.

“When coaching against [Ireland lineout coach] Paul O’Connell you are always under pressure there. I thought our options from the lineouts could have been better, our attacking from the lineout could have been better.

“It was a quality team that put pressure on us… but it wasn’t the main concern of the game. The main concern was that first half [of the second Test in Durban].”

The Springboks have historically been wedded to the maul as an attacking weapon, more than any other top-tier nation. If they are ready to renounce it, something must be up.

The reasoning is still seemingly invisible to Australia. Over the two matches against the Wallabies, Wales converted no fewer than four tries from basic variations of the driving lineout, two in each game. One was disallowed for marginal obstruction on review, but the pattern was crystal clear.

Anytime Wales obtained a lineout inside the Wallaby 22, they looked likely to score. The men in red were still repeating the same formula in Melbourne which had been successful in Sydney, so there was also a question about how much the Wallabies had learned between the first and second Tests.

Schmidt was only too aware of the problem after the game in Melbourne:

“It’s a massive part of the game. When they got access [to the Wallaby red zone] and they went after the maul [defence], they got results from it. That made it really hard for us.

“We will be looking really hard at it, and trying to find some solutions.”

One thing is for certain, Erasmus is far too shrewd a cookie for his ears not to have pricked up, and his interest in the maul thoroughly reawakened by Australia’s Welsh experience. The Wallabies need to find some fixes, both in terms of personnel and tactical outlook, before the they take on the most renowned maulers-and-brawlers on the face of the planet.

The first warning shot was fired midway through the first half in Sydney, with prop Gareth Thomas off the field on a yellow card and Wales down to seven forwards.

The dominant impression of the Wallaby maul defence set-up in those first two snapshots is its sheer passivity. The Australian forwards align with a prop [James Slipper] directly opposite the receiver [Wales skipper Dafydd Jenkins] so there is no chance of a contest in the air. The nearest second row to ‘Slips’ is the Force’s Jeremy Williams, and he is looking to bind with his right arm over Slipper’s back rather than trying to penetrate the three-man Welsh blocking front; looking to resist pressure rather than create some of his own.

One of the ‘musts’ on the bucket list for maul defence is active and immediate defence of the infield corner, but in the second snapshot Lukhan Salakaia-Loto is propping on to the front man of the Welsh blocking front, he has not promoted on to the second layer of the drive, any closer to the ball-carrier. Jenkins calls the Welsh backs to join only two or three seconds after the catch has been made because he knows there is no control of that space. It cost Australia a penalty try and a yellow card for flanker Fraser McReight.

Wales scored from the maul at much the same time, and in much the same way in the first half in Melbourne.

The only difference is Australia added an extra defender outside Salakaia-Loto [number eight Charlie Cale], but there is still no threat of either a competition in the air, or penetration on the ground when the ball returns to terra firma, so Wales simply choose to redirect down the ‘weak’ or short-side of the drive. The defence is still far too linear, and far too reactive.

Warren Gatland’s dragons still had time to breathe more fire drawn from the oxygen of their driving lineout later in the half.

With Salakaia-Loto in the sin bin for a high tackle, the Wallabies come on in the same old way, and they are seen off in the same old way by Jenkins and his blocking front. The overhead angle is especially instructive: the first line of Australian forwards is strictly linear and passive in attitude and there is no attempt at either inside penetration or upfield containment on that sensitive infield corner. On this occasion, the Welsh forwards do not even need the assistance of their backs to convert opportunity into try.

What can the Wallabies do to remedy the problem in the space of three weeks, with the Springbok mauling power likely to eclipse the threat posed on by Wales? In terms of personnel, it is time to bring out the bugle and call for the overseas cavalry. Will Skelton is probably the single most dominant maul defender in the world, and he would give the Wallabies the push they need straight up the middle on the ground. Likewise, Izack Rodda is one of the best defensive lineout operators in the air, and the likelihood Wales would have been able to get away with three identikit throws to Jenkins in the red zone with Rodda around is very small indeed.

On the tactical front, the second Test between South Africa and Ireland showed just why Erasmus was so reluctant to trust his driving lineout against the Irish maul defence.

The Ireland defence is all abut aggression. Ryan gets up in the air at the front, Tadhg Furlong quickly moves up the infield corner of the drive and on to the second layer, while big Joe McCarthy splits the seam between the receiver [RG Snyman] and the weak-side blocker [Franco Mostert, in the headband] to strip the ball and force a turnover.

McCarthy won his second turnover at the end of the third quarter.

There is nothing passive about Ireland. Number 17 Cian Healy is straight up the side of the drive and into the second layer, shedding blockers like leaves off a tree. Eventually it leaves a two-on-one with the ball-carrier [Marco van Staden] outnumbered by McCarthy and Tadhg Beirne. There can be only one winner in that contest.

The series win over Wales was a laudable start point, but if Schmidt’s Wallabies want to mix it with the big boys in the forthcoming Rugby Championship, their maul defence will need to take a quantum leap forward.

Australia needs superior size and physicality, and far better tactical nous. It cannot do battle with the Bokke twice in two weeks with two second rows of 6ft 5ins or 6ft 6ins, and expect to come out even. The elastic which sticks the Wallabies to the global top-tier peloton may stretch to the limit, but it must not break as they ascend their very own Ventoux, or all will be lost.