Former Wallabies prop and GainLine Analytics founder Ben Darwin has called for Dave Rennie to maintain consistency across the squad as they build towards the 2023 World Cup.
Since October, the Wallabies have selected 14 debutants across a seven Test series.
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This has included a bevy of options at first and second receiver, with the likes of Noah Lolesio, James O'Connor, Matt To'omua and Hunter Paisami rotated between the 10 and 12 jerseys.
Darwin, who has become an expert in measuring team cohesion and the benefits it can have in a sporting environment, believes finding stability within these channels will be crucial towards the success of the team heading forward.
“The most important part to have consistency in a team is 10-12-13, particularly around your first phase defence, close defence off the set-piece and middle channels,” Darwin said.
“Any changes that we have there can make is extremely difficult. Firstly in attack, what is does is you don’t tend to get over the gain line as much because the 10 is not as confident where the 9 will put the ball and you saw that last week when we had a new 9-10 combination and that takes time.
“You don’t find combinations, you make combinations. It’s not something that we just do and hope. We have that at 12 and 13 so if we change 10 again, there’s that difficult in defence between 10-12 and 9-10.
“As far as numbers, Australia is pretty much where they were last year with the first Test against NZ so we need to build that. We’re two years out from a World Cup, you have to have strong stability through your team. There are three ways to win a World Cup and that’s one of them.”
With the second Test set to kick off on Tuesday, there are still plenty of questions surrounding how the Wallabies will line-up in the halves.
Reds scrumhalf Tate McDermott was electric off the bench, putting significant pressure on Jake Gordon.
Whilst James O'Connor is racing the clock to be fit as he deals with a groin complaint.
Along with this, there is a four-day turnaround to consider, all but ruling out any player with a slight knock or issue for a potential deciding Test
Whichever decision they go, Darwin believes Rennie and the Wallabies need to start building continuity as they continue to welcome new players into International Rugby ahead of 2023.
“I think the biggest thing when a player is coming onto the field as a new player, the less players he has played with, the harder it is to perform well,” Darwin believes.
“When a player comes on for the Crusaders for example, they’ve generally played with about 13 of their teammates. If you’re coming on with 7 or 8, it’s very difficult to perform if we played with the other 7 or 8 so we need to give these guys time.
“With any performance we have, we need to treat it like a starting point. Brentford in the UK just went from fourth division to first division with a policy on we don’t make a choice on a player until we’re 35 games in and that helped enormously because they are at a level of understanding that they will be performing well.
“Let’s go through these early games for these young guys, have faith with them and the performances will come.
“Generally, from two years out to win a World Cup, you need to have a stable team from here going here. We never know what’s going to happen with injuries, COVID so I think it’s important to now say these are the guys and if we have scores put on us, you’ve just got to take it as part of the deal."
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