Battle of the breakdown to determine Wallabies’ grand slam future

The Wallabies’ grand slam dream is alive but there are some shortcomings that could derail the hopes of the Australians.

A scoreline of 42-37 shows two things, the Wallabies scored lots of points, and they conceded almost as many.

Overall, it was a loose and entertaining game with lots of end-to-end action but shipping that many points is a sure way to lose matches.

If we put aside the anomaly of the Los Pumas second test against the Wallabies, where the scoreline was 67-27, the Wallabies have conceded an average of 28.4 points per game in 2024.

Compare this with the average points per game they’ve scored, which is 23.1 points per game, ignoring the outlier against England, what changes must occur becomes obvious.

The Wallabies must keep their opposition under 23 points or their chance of winning drops dramatically.

Both their defence and attack have been critiqued on several occasions, but with the latest performance and some new personnel, along with increased cohesion, it looks as though the attack is on the up.

Conversely, the defence did not look as flash, tackling at 84.4 per cent and shipping 37 points.

Although this sounds bleak, there were notable aspects in the Wallabies’ defence against England.

The line speed of their defence has finally increased, particularly for those closer to the ruck.

Those players can be seen to make a greater effort for their first three steps to be quick and aggressive off the line.

This made for dominant tackles, denying England repeated gain line metres, and subsequently slowed down their ruck speed.

Coach Joe Schmidt and defence coach Laurie Fisher are both implementing a connected line speed defence.

This defensive system relies on players working to stay connected, where inside players are higher than their outside man and are pushing teams away from the previous ruck.

The coaches also demand players to chop tackle – tackling people from the hips or below – to bring opposition players to ground as quickly as possible.

This defensive system is built on ‘line integrity’, meaning that tackles shouldn’t be missed and few linebreaks should be conceded, and as a result the system has few fail-safes should one occur.

This is in stark contrast with the rush defence systems run by England, South Africa, Wales, Argentina and Ireland most prominently.

The rush defence system prioritises pressure on the player with the ball as opposed to the ‘integrity’ of the defensive line, subsequently meaning less emphasis on first-time tackle completion.

To put it in context across the weekend’s games: Wales, Ireland, Argentina, South Africa, all tackled at 84 per cent or below, the last two teams mentioned won comprehensively.

The teams who run these systems do vary in their application of ball-and-all tackles and lower techniques.

These differences are material to understanding where the Wallabies are going wrong.

Firstly, the Wallabies should be tackling north of 85 per cent in every game, up towards 90 per cent.

The All Blacks also run a connected line speed defence, and they tackled at 88 per cent against Ireland at the weekend, conceding only 13-points.

The key difference between the Wallabies and All Blacks’ defensive success, stems from the defensive breakdown.

Simply put, the All Blacks at any given time have four or more genuine jackal threats on the field.

Starting up front, whoever’s playing hooker, Scott Barrett, Wallace Sititi, Sam Cane, and Ardie Savea, halfbacks TJ Perenara and Cortez Ratima have been pests at the breakdown as well.

This is a deliberate tactic by Scott Roberston and forward’s coach Jason Ryan as the All Blacks want to attack off turnover ball, the collateral damage with this tactic is breakdown penalties.

Conversely, the Wallabies only have one pilfer threat: Fraser McReight.

The Wallabies are not slowing down the ruck enough to allow their defence to get set and as a result they are tackling at a lower percentage.

The defence can’t be connected if it isn’t aligned, and it can’t be aligned when they are offside because the next phase is already in play.

ENGvAUS defence

In these phases England set eight rucks in 58 seconds and make a total of 12 metres but only make 9 metres net gain.

A few moments after the clip ends England knock on the ball, showing a good defensive set from the Wallabies, with England having nothing to show for their multi-phase attack.

In the first phase, Nick Frost and Harry Wilson aggressively come off the line and hit Will Stuart.

They make contact around 2-metres behind the gainline but they fail to chop him and so despite the increased line speed Stuart makes 1-metre over the gainline with an extra role on the floor denying a pilfer for McReight.

At the subsequent two rucks Taniela Tupou and Angus Bell both make unsuccessful pilfer attempts.

In the sixth phase, Jeremy Williams has a go but is also unsuccessful, McReight has his second dig in the phase count during the eighth phase but is cleaned out.

That is five attempts from four players, so it is an element of the game they are wanting to attack but truthfully, none of their endeavours appears to actually slow down England’s ruck speed.

It’s a slow build for Shmidt, his assistants, and his players, but there is great growth happening at the attacking breakdown, in ball handling, and the belief within the team.

However, the reality is, England are not the biggest attacking threat Australia will face on this tour, both Scotland and Ireland are elite attacking sides, with brute strength, dynamic phase attack, and tricky strike plays.

If the Wallabies are to keep sides below the threshold of 23-points, then they have two choices.

First option is to pick more players who have jackaling in their toolkit already, within the current squad there’s players like Brandon Paenga-Amosa, Carlo Tizzano, and Will Skelton.

The second option is to put a greater emphasis on this in training, so the playing cohort gets more practice, and task them with honing this skill during the next three matches as well as during their 2025 Super Rugby Pacific season.

Incorporating such a demand into the players’ games during a grand slam tour, against some of the best sides in the world, is not ideal timing but it may be a vital piece to the puzzle.

If successfully learned, it would’ve been a situation of high risk, high reward, come the British and Irish Lions tour in less than 9 months’ time.

It would also mean a learning curve with a multitude of penalties, a consequence a previously ill-disciplined side like the Wallabies cannot really afford at this stage.

Schmidt is caught between a rock and a hard place; time is against him as he rushes to get this team ready and playing to their potential.

For now, selecting those players in the squad with jackaling already in their repertoire is the best option for Schmidt.

Choosing to start BPA and Skelton or bringing them on earlier could prove dividends as are genuine breakdown threats.

This is because big ball carriers are vital for the Wallabies, if they would run a 6-2 split bench then there may be room to see a Tizzano-McReight axis in the later stages of the game.

The Wallabies are in Cardiff to play Warren Gatland’s Wales, a side that is desperate to avoid another loss, and that makes them a dangerous prospect for a Wallabies side high off a win.

The Wallabies must assert themselves at the breakdown against Wales if they hope to keep Wales to a low score and continue to build on their collective game.

The Wallabies have proved they have enough points in them to win this, as long as their defence can improve.