The Wallabies will undoubtedly come under criticism after Saturday night's vapid 6-0 second Test victory against France. Indeed, the Wallabies coach, Ewen McKenzie, would have felt immense relief as France, unrecognisable from the rabble who shipped 50 points in the first Test last week, came tantalisingly close to stealing the ugliest of games in the final minutes.
Yet the Wallabies somehow clung on to register their sixth consecutive win – a far from insignificant measure of progress for an evolving team still in search of its true collective identity and character. A win is a win, no matter how gruesome. McKenzie and his new captain, Michael Hooper, essentially said so after the match. The pair gladly accepted the two-penalty kicks to nought win for what it was – a series-clinching, trinket-winning effort. For a team with no meaningful silverware in the cupboard and on a quest for the Bledisloe and World Cup, a winning habit has to be welcomed. It's a small, albeit ugly step forward.
Privately, McKenzie would have been enormously grateful to the French though. Finally, the tourists showed up to play and tested his charges in a way that meant something. The first Test offered little material to gauge how the 2014 Wallabies perform under sustained pressure. It was nothing more than a training ground romp. In stark contrast, McKenzie could have filled several notebooks on Saturday on his team’s deficiencies. In fact, France have done the Wallabies an invaluable service given the first Bledisloe Cup Test against the All Blacks is barely two months away. And there can be no doubt the New Zealanders will be more than adequately battle-hardened courtesy of an intense three-Test series workout against an ever-improving England outfit.
Top of McKenzie's notebook will be team selection. This column has previously argued for a Wallabies Test backline based on a Kurtley Beale (12), Adam Ashley-Cooper (13) and Israel Folau (15) axis with either Bernard Foley of Matt Toomua at fly-half, preferably Foley by the narrowest of margins given his already well-established combination with Beale, Ashley-Cooper and Folau at the Waratahs. The idea behind the so-called KB-AAC-Izzy attacking unit selection is simple – pick a backline to unleash Folau on the opposition. That didn't happen against France on Saturday. It never looked like happening. Toomua and Tevita Kuridrani, superb players that they are, just don't link up with Folau the way Beale and Ashley-Cooper do with devastating effect for the Waratahs. Folau looked ostracised from the attack against France, and spent most of the evening at the back aimlessly kicking away possession. He looked like a bloke who didn't know his own team-mates. Such a tragic waste of his talent.
It's a dilemma for the working relationship between McKenzie and attack coach Jim McKay, who is an unabashed fan of Toomua and Kuridrani. It's possible McKay has got in McKenzie's ear and influenced selection away from the KB-AAC-Izzy combination. McKenzie is an intelligent chap, as shrewd as they come. It's inconceivable then that he would have on his own volition ignored the merits of that proven combination, which has been on display week-in, week-out in Super Rugby. The omission is more than a mere missed trick – it's a butchered chance to bed down a Folau-unleashing backline axis that would have seen Australia through to next year's World Cup and beyond. The Wallabies selection fiasco beggars belief in many ways. It should have been a simple decision. Transplant the Waratahs unit to the Wallabies. Instead, we have Toomua, a fly-half at Super level, playing at 12, and Australia's best centre, Ashley-Cooper, playing on the wing. Meanwhile, the crucial ingredient to unlocking Folau, Kurtley Beale, sits on the bench.
McKenzie and McKay got away with their botched selections last week only because the French stumbled through the first Test. Not second time around though. The seriously out of balance Wallabies backline has been rudely exposed as an impotent, lateral-moving beast with its most potent weapon, Folau, so well concealed not even his team-mates knows how to find him. It’s a crab without claws. And it's a joke to which the All Blacks could be laughing the loudest on 18 August, by which time they could be playing for a world record 18 consecutive Test wins – although England may have something to say about that next week in Hamilton.
