When he received the ball from a Nic Phipps pass in the 79th minute of the game, Bernard Foley had already cemented his place in Wallaby folk law. Up to that point, he had scored all of Australia’s 26 points, breaking Matt Burke’s 17-year record for points scored against England. Taking the ball just behind his own ten metre line, the obvious thing to would have been to kick the ball deep and wind down what was left of the contest. Yet, after summing up the situation and realising he had a one man overlap with replacement English prop Kieran Brookes on the wing, Foley attacked the line, as he had done so effectively all night, before delivering a pinpoint miss pass to get Adam Ashley-Cooper outside Brookes and away down the line.
Not satisfied with his work, he followed the play and, had try scorer Matt Giteau needed to pass the ball back inside, Foley would have been there to complete a stunning hat trick. Seconds later he landed the conversion from the touchline to take his total for the game to 28 points, adding to the two tries, two conversions and four penalties from the previous 80 minutes of play.
That passage of play highlighted everything Foley had done well all game, as he combined speed of thought with precision of execution to put together what will likely be the best game by a fly half all tournament. Combine that with the fact that (perhaps excluding the 2014 Super Rugby final, a game in which he also excelled) this was the biggest game of Foley’s career, and what your left with is a one man scoring show for the ages.
However, perhaps the most remarkable thing about the spectacle Foley orchestrated was that they were nearly no indication before the game that he was set to produce such a performance. After a brilliant 2014 campaign that saw him triumph in Super Rugby and establish himself as Australia’s first choice number 10, he has been far more uneven in 2015, with a goal kicking success of 67% underlining an inconsistent season for The Waratahs. For the Wallabies he hasn’t been much better, opening the door for mercurial playmaker Quade Cooper to potentially steal the role. In fact, the main reason Foley was on Saturday really wasn’t he own good play as much as it was Cooper failing to seize the opportunity Head Coach Michael Cheika afforded him, getting sin binned in three of his last four games for the national team.
As soon as the game started though, Foley began to control proceedings; his first kick a laser-guided stab into the England 22 the forced a mistake out of Mike Brown, garnering the Wallabies a five metre lineout. He would continue to run the show early on, constantly flattening Australia’s attack, while adding in a few probing runs of his own. It was on one such dart that the first try arrived, taking the ball just a few metres away from England’s defensive line, Foley found a chink in the armour, slipping past a despairing Joe Launchbury before stepping inside Mike Brown to dive over.
What was arguably more impressive than the try itself though was how Foley reacted to it. After England booted it long from the kickoff, Australia went through two phases before the ball found its way back to Foley in the pocket. With an English forward rushing toward him, cutting off his preferred angle down the right hand touchline, he nonchalantly sold a quick dummy before taking a few steps, resetting his feet and booming a punt over to the left side of the field. This in turn caught out Brown again, who had to scurry across the field to regather, and the resulting bout of kick-tennis netted Australia 25 metres as a result. In was a gorgeously simplistic – yet highly effective – piece of play, keeping his side on the front foot following the early score and encapsulating the calm, decisive accuracy with which Foley went about his work all night.
Of course, his second try was the true highlight of the night, a stunning confluence of timing, skill and execution with Foley seemingly reaching back to his sevens background to pull out one of the tries of the tournament. Yet, even that doesn’t get to the heart of why he was so brilliant on Saturday night, nor does his 7/7 goal kicking which, though a vast improvement on previous efforts this season, didn’t feature any truly challenging kicks until the final one.
His true mastery came with the score at 20-13, at which point it looked like Australia may be about to come apart at the seams. During England’s comeback, Foley had somewhat disappeared from the game, an accusation that has been levelled at him in the past; that same sevens background that came to the fore on the second try pushing him to the periphery.
However, with the stadium in full voice and the English sensing their opportunity to really get back in the game, Foley resurfaced, visibly, and ostensibly consciously, injecting himself more into Australia’s play. He flattened the attack again, bringing runners closer to the gainline while organising those outside them. At times in the past it has been these moments where Foley has faded from view almost altogether, sliding in an out of play like a 2013-era Kurtley Beale, rather than grab the game by the scruff of the neck like his skillset suggests he can. That control and confidence really guided Australia though a potentially pivotal point in the match, culminating in and Owen Farrell yellow card that was essentially England’s death knell.
Since Michael Cheika took control of the Wallabies last October, he has been more than willing to chop and change at fly half, seldom giving his full backing to the ten who led him to a Super Rugby title just 16 months ago. There is no doubt that Saturday’s performance may not be replicable; he was given an easy ride by an English back row that wouldn’t touch some of the units he comes up against for the Waratahs. However, he has simultaneously ended any lingering doubts over selection, and any queries as to whether he truly has what is takes when the pressure’s on.
Even as that final conversion dissected the uprights though, it was clear that neither Australia, nor its diminutive playmaker-in-chief were entirely satisfied. As Cheika said after the game, the performance wasn’t perfect; for Foley it very nearly was.
“Main Photo”
