IT WAS not, Michael Foley said, the easiest of experiences. For four years he has been accustomed to watching the Bath forwards at work and his eyes kept straying on Sunday to the contribution Lee Mears was making to the match at the Telstra Stadium in Sydney. Except Mears was the hooker in England’s white and Foley’s responsibility is to the development of the next generation of Australia’s forwards.
“I enjoyed my time coaching at Bath immensely,” Foley said. “The relationships I established, I’ll cherish forever.”
But Foley, the former hooker who won 50 caps for Australia, a World Cup winner’s medal in 1999 and had the reputation as his country’s “go-to” man when the chips were down, is now part of a refurbished coaching panel that had the best of starts when England were beaten 34-3 last weekend.
Australia, mind you, generally begin the year successfully, but that did not save Eddie Jones’s coaching job as a stream of injuries hit home last year. Now, like New Zealand, they have a panel with enormous experience of the northern hemisphere because John Connolly, the head coach who was Foley’s mentor as a player in Queensland, spent time in France, Wales and England, while Scott Johnson, the attack coach, was in Wales for four years.
“I think what I learnt in the north was the love of the contest,” Foley said. “We are trying to redefine the identity of the [Australia] team and certain aspects of the game. A lot of things have been right about the way Australian rugby is played and we are trying to add to that. But when you identify deficient areas, you can become focused on technique, on tactics and the mentality required takes a back seat.”
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For all the success Australia have had in the past 20 years, there has been a criticism that they became a team who played by numbers. Despite churning out a succession of world-class backs, Stephen Larkham, George Gregan and Lote Tuqiri among them, the “give it a go” characteristic of a nation had fallen into shadow.
“Any sport is a contest,” Foley, 39, said. “In training, we want to give the players the tools of skills and tactical understanding, but you can’t cover every contingency. You have to be careful not to overemphasise the technical aspects and stifle thought. Some parts of the game can be more organised than others, but you must leave room for the individual to say, ‘This is how I will adapt in an imperfect situation.’
“The most important thing is establishing a competitive mentality. Let’s not make the contest too sterile. The first time we drove a maul when I was at Bath, and the crowd applauded, I thought that was fantastic. I had found a home away from home. That sort of thing isn’t necessarily instilled in spectators of the southern-hemisphere game.”
It is a philosophy with which Foley’s England counterparts agree. Indeed, the pre-match handshakes in Sydney between old Bathonians — Foley, Connolly, Brian Ashton, Andy Robinson and various England players — had a degree of warmth that is not always the case before battle.
Now, Foley wants to teach spectators in Australia the nature of forward play as appreciated in his old stomping ground. “We need to think about the education of the spectator,” he said. “ You don’t have to understand the game in all its technical aspects, but you can appreciate the rawness of the contest, that 16 guys in the scrum are working their butts off and that what they are doing requires unbelievable will and character.”
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It may benefit the Australia coaches that the sporting spotlight is fixed on Germany. When football’s World Cup is over, the Australian public may find that they are a step closer to recovering the rugby one.