YOU MAY HAVE noticed the word ‘blunder’ going around more than usual today.
The sighting of some simplistic bullet points in the hands of Australia scrum coach Mario Ledesma has the rugby world laughing at an ‘accidental reveal’ of Michael Cheika’s gameplan for winning the World Cup final.
What was on the page was hardly secret of life stuff though. ‘Rattle’ Kieran Read, ‘catch everything’, win turnovers, expose the wingers? This is weak language that, once you replace names with numbers, can be applied to any game anywhere on the planet tomorrow.
But it’s not any game. The big reveal just happened to come the day before the World Cup final when hordes of media from around the world stationed themselves pitchside for a look at the Wallaby players and staff.
You know, if you were going to try to to plant ideas in the opponents’ mind, that might be the time. After all, in this age of long lenses and zipped tracksuit pockets, there’s no point in wandering round the field with top secret plans on days when the training session is closed to media, is there?
There were more than just the same cliches you’d bark at the J5s on this page, sure: there were specific instructions for kick-off ‘four’ (rattle Read) and ‘five’ (keep Pocock back), suggestions that Dan Carter will only run the ball if moving from right to left and the assertion that Ma’a Nonu will cut back inside if met by good line-speed.
However, any All Black who bothered to zoom in on the paper in Ledesma’s hand feel short changed to find no mention of any Wallaby weakness or habits — only information designed to second guess themselves.
This isn’t a leak, it’s a plant. Will it succeed in rattling any Kiwis? Maybe we’ll find out after four or five restarts tomorrow.
