Australia and Georgia shared a close affair in which Australia struggled to break down the Georgians, and made intriguing watching. The game became ever more tense for the wallabies, as up until the 60th minute they were unable to distance the lelos threat.
The lack of inventivity really caused issues for Austrlaians, as well as a lack of ability to exploit space, perhaps pertained by fielding the 11th half back combination in the last 4 years. The lack of cohesion manifested itself obviously in the Austrlain play.
Take a look at the example above. The forward dominance is clear from Australia. And whilst the Georgia player on the right of frame is holding two away from the maul, the general forward momentum is a great platform. Yet whether through lack of trust or a blind adherence to the game plan Australia don’t free the ball. Instead, losing control of the maul and getting swamped as shown below.
While this is to some extent judging by outcome, the Austrlians should have been able to take advantage of such a simple platform. The problem however should be easily fixed. Australia have a knack for scoring close to the line, breaking through with strong runners for example Hooper v Wales at this world cup. Attacking with width at the 3rd defender and enabling easy yardage and scores.
However in this case there is very limited width. Australia are carrying hard but don’t identify the space. In this passage of play there were 11 phases, 9 of which don’t have any degree of width the other two, simple passess to close runners.
Australia can’t identify the space and don’t have any real speed. They do switch the sides of attack stretching Georgia slightly, but at this point, there is a poor identification resulting in failed probe. The outcome of this simple error, running at Georgian bodies is a scrum to the Lelos.
Australia did manage to eventually score tries, and it is the second of these I will focus on. At around 60 minutes, Australia have a lineout and use it as a platform to send a big runner straight at Georgia.
Unsurprisingly the blunt method doesn’t garner any real short term gains.
However it enables Genia to manipulate the Georgia defence. The Aussie 9 sniping around the fringes, his two step passing motion drawing the defence on him rather than allowing an intercept. As well as this, Australia have come with a plan of attack involving guile. The 2 pods of 3 working round the corner (this phase and the one previous) have drawn Georgia in.
Whilst Georgia are disorganized, with a solitary shooter they are able to catch Leialiafano behind the gain line. This forces Australia to attack off slower ball. However a flatter pass by Genia cuts off 1 aussie and finds the hooker roaming in the outside channels, against his opposite number.
This exploitation of a lack of reorganisation is key. Whilst the offload goes to ground and Koribete has to retreat onto he makes his break by attacking forwards, unable to match this form of his physical prowess and allowing him to break the gain line.
Overall, Australlia made tough work of Georgia. The Lelos put up some real fight, but eventually Australia’s Tier One fitness saw them through. Whilst there was some bluntless and they lacked any real penetration, the Aussies flicked the switch when needs be and managed to win a game characterised by Georgian grit.
The Analysis Guy 