Spring Internationals: Tonga vs Australia Preview
Where to begin in sussing out this Tonga vs Australia game? Oh, maybe actual footy and looking past all the fluff that now runs parallel to Tongan rugby league. Dig deeper than the vibes on offer from Tonga playing an international game against Australia, in Auckland which probably has the highest concentration of Tongan people in the world (top three cities at least) and you will find that Tonga have to do something fairly bonkers to beat Australia.
Of course, that isn't to be Mr Downbuzz on what we have here. My duty to the Niche Cache whanau is to preview a game of rugby league, to put aside the antics and fandom on the peripheral, thus breaking down the on-field action. If anything, this is because there's no need for me to talk about the peripheral fluff; you can all see the fandom and you all know that international rugby league needs more fixtures.
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More fixtures and not just Tonga. Don't get caught up in the Tonga buzz right now and overlook the fact that Samoa, Fiji and Papa New Guinea are not playing any games in this international window. That's the real bummer here, one step at a time though.
To set the scene for this game, we need to look back to Australia's performance against New Zealand. Australia were fairly mediocre in making 11 errors (Kiwis had 5), which obviously flowed into 42 percent possession and there's no way you are winning an international game with just 42 percent of the footy. In a team without their Kangaroos legends, Australia forced a single drop-out, but somehow managed more line breaks and tackle busts than the Kiwis, as well as missing fewer tackles.
Oh and Australia only lost by 2 points.
Oh and Luke Keary played 16 minutes, before going off with a concussion. This was low key crucial because it meant that Damien Cook had to play 71mins, which is less than his standard 80mins that we see in the NRL; 71mins at international level is very different to NRL level. With Keary off, Ben Hunt was moved into the halves and I suspect that coach Mal Meninga's plan was to use Cook/Hunt as the hooking rotation, which is likely to be the case vs Tonga.
Sure, Cook got targeted in the defensive line and made a whopping 55 tackles, but this is because of Keary's absence. Aotearoa made the most of it and in making 55 tackles, Cook's vibrancy at dummy half decreased. Tonga have a fantastic forward pack, that will be asked to do a lot of defensive work through the middle and there will be a fair amount of chasing if they can't control the ruck area.
Cook had 4runs/40m vs Kiwis, well below his NRL average of 7.6runs/89m. If Cook's running vs Tonga, suddenly the Kangaroos have a tempo they can work with and this will force the robust Tongan forwards to not only make tackles, but to put in more effort to limit the momentum around the ruck.
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The other notable aspect of the Kangaroos work against Aotearoa was the effectiveness of their outside backs, specifically out on the edges. The Kiwis were still troubled by Dane Gagai, Tom Trbojevic, Latrell Mitchell and Valentine Holmes despite their control of the middle and it felt as though any time Australia hit their edges, they made things happen.
I'm not overly optimistic that Tonga will be able to stop this. The Kiwis couldn't and they had 58 percent of the footy, so I don't expect Michael Jennings and Solomone Kata to have a jolly evening marking up against Trbojevic and Mitchell; especially given that Keary will be eager to flex on his return. Australia will have a plan to expose Tonga's edges and they will isolate the Tongan centres, either directly or by targeting Tuimoala Lolohea and Ata Hingano, forcing the centres to react and help.
A lot of this falls under the umbrella of Australia bouncing back. That's the All Blacks type of standard and the most logical way of thinking here is to believe that Australia would have taken a fair bit away from their loss to Aotearoa, that this young Kangaroos team will want to prove themselves in the post-Smith/Cronk/Slater/Thurston era.
There is also a low key narrative of Tonga lacking the quality to control the game, as the Kiwis did last week. While the Kiwis were on top, they got repeat sets and also forced Australia to come off their own try line, before they won the early tackles with aggressive defence. There is little to suggest that Lolohea and Hingano can do this, especially considering that neither of them made a ripple in the NRL this year.
Lolohea and Hingano looked great when Tonga steam-rolled every opponent in the World Cup. If that's the case here against an Australian packed that just got rolled by the Kiwis, Lolohea and Hingano could play crucial roles for Tonga yet again. Does anyone out there think that Australia's forwards won't relish this challenge given what happened last week? Heck no, hence I'm struggling to see any situation where Lolohea and Hingano can put Australia under sustained pressure.
Tonga have an All-Star calibre forward pack, not only in terms of the names listed but also in how these guys go about their business. They are all incredibly dynamic, powerful and skillful which as we've seen over the past 12 months, can fuck up any opponent's game plan. What Tonga will encounter here though, is an Australian team that has pieces that can come together to limit the influence of Tonga's main strength.
Josh McGuire and Jake Trbojevic are highly capable middle defenders, who when mixed in with the size of David Klemmer and Jordan McLean, Boyd Cordner etc can help Australia slow Tonga's roll. What Australia do with the ball will play a major role in this as well, as they can move Tonga's middle forwards around with passing, offloads and giving their strike-weapons out wide early footy.
That will obviously create scoring chances, yet it will also force repeat efforts from the Tongan forwards. Sprinkle Cook boosting out of dummy half and James Tedesco lurking around the middle and Australia are armed with players who can take advantage of anyone who is not covering inside shoulders, or is fatigued.
The thing about this game though is that everything could change if Tonga are able to be the hammer and dictate the flow through the middle. Such is their quality through the middle, that they could get a sniff and with the emotion of the atmosphere, that could be all they need. This will be a challenge that Tonga haven't faced during their hot-streak and the challenge only gets trickier when Australia are coming off a loss.
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Peace and love 27.