Opinion
A 35-year-old and a Wallaby rookie walk into a French bar. It’s no joke
Paul Cully
Rugby columnistRugby Australia’s next head of high performance — a job currently being advertised — should be left in no doubt of one thing: never again can the Wallabies head into a Rugby World Cup with the choice at No.10 between a 35-year-old playing in Japan and a 22-year-old coming off his first good Super Rugby campaign.
That’s the context behind Carter Gordon’s selection against the All Blacks at the MCG: it shows expediency on Eddie Jones’ part more than an appetite for risk. In fact, it’s not even his riskiest selection in the 23, with Jordan Petaia’s selection at No.13 off no rugby presenting a greater target for the All Blacks than Gordon, who has been picked to shore up the No.10 channel that Jordie Barrett was going to target with Cooper in the role.
Cooper has done remarkably well to even get himself back on the field for the Rugby Championship after suffering an Achilles injury, but it is an indictment on Australian rugby that a player who started at No.10 in the 2011 Rugby World Cup finds himself in the box seat to do so again a full 12 years later.
And should he or Gordon get injured, the Wallabies are going to have to go deeper into their playing stocks in a way that shows they are an outlier in modern Test rugby.
In fact, if you look at the seven teams above the Wallabies in the world rankings, all but Argentina have three — possibly four — options at No.10, a mixture of established Test players or newer guys coming off strong seasons for the clubs/franchises.
Scotland are No.5 in the world, in part because they have Blair Kinghorn, Adam Hastings and now Ben Healy sitting behind Finn Russell.
Quade Cooper and Carter Gordon in camp on the Gold Coast last month.Credit: Getty
Jones himself had George Ford, Owen Farrell and Marcus Smith in England. There is a significant contrast between the big boys of Test rugby and Australian rugby, which needs to forget about the early 2000s and quickly come to terms with the fact they are currently a middle-of-the-road Test nation that needs a reboot of their structures and pathways.
Cooper’s late-career return has papered over some of these cracks, but he has been targeted in the past two Tests — especially by the Springboks in Pretoria.
The All Blacks would have done exactly the same thing on Saturday, so Gordon’s inclusion should give the Wallabies some extra security in defence.
At Super Rugby level, at least, Gordon has been a willing and effective defender, and he has absolutely earned his start in Melbourne.
Jordan Petaia’s selection is arguably a riskier move than that of Carter Gordon.Credit: Getty
Considering Cooper’s track record against the All Blacks, it is not really a roll of the dice at all, and presumably Jones has already told him that his World Cup hopes do not depend on a good performance. His place in France is already assured.
What is likely to happen, however, is that the All Blacks slightly shift their focus to Petaia and Samu Kerevi, especially as they have at least one strike play that is specifically designed to exploit uncertain midfield combinations.
It’s true that Petaia and Kerevi have some history in the midfield together, but their partnership at the Reds is ancient history now and the challenge posed by Jordie Barrett and Rieko Ioane will be both physical and nuanced.
Against Argentina, the All Blacks ran a midfield move that cut Los Pumas to pieces, with Barrett carrying, Ioane running the dummy line and No.10 Damian McKenzie hovering in behind for the pullback pass from Barrett.
The All Blacks are at short odds to run that again on Saturday, with Richie Mo’unga in for McKenzie, but possessing the same sort of acceleration that McKenzie used to slice through Los Pumas.
Petaia’s selection, not that of Gordon, will have been the one that caught the All Blacks’ attention, with the Rebels playmaker well regarded in New Zealand — and already studied hard by their Super Rugby teams.
None of these issues will necessarily stop the Wallabies from performing well on Saturday; getting up for one-off occasions against the All Blacks is part of their recent history.
But their struggles in the Rugby Championship so far, and the selection moves made by Jones, will tell the dispassionate observer that nothing should be off limits for the incoming high-performance tsar if Australian rugby is serious about returning to its glory days.
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