Turinui a future Test captain
Comment by Wayne Smith
September 10, 2005
MAT ROGERS has never claimed to be a deep thinker where rugby is concerned. Indeed, just the opposite.
A natural-born footballer, as Wallabies coach Eddie Jones described him recently, he keeps his mind uncluttered on the field, all the better to give his amazing instincts free rein.
But last Sunday in Auckland, the blurry morning after his astonishing night before when he had performed so magnificently against the All Blacks in his Test debut at five-eighth, Rogers sat down with the media and gave one of the more delightful and insightful interviews of his career.
Tucked away in the midst of it was a tribute to the man he credited with taking most of the tactical strain off his shoulders at Eden Park.
"Morgan Turinui is a freak, a once in a lifetime footballer," Rogers proclaimed. "He's 23 but he's got the head of a 33-year-old ... every time we got a penalty, I'd look at him and he'd have everything organised for me.
"He's a machine. He was bred to play footy and run the show and I think he will be a very worthy captain one day."
Rogers' words resonated with me, as words always do when they reinforce one's own opinion. The first time I interviewed Turinui, just before his Test debut as a 21-year-old against Ireland in Perth in June 2003, I came away convinced I'd just met the future Australia captain but didn't quite have the courage to put that audacious thought into print.
It wasn't until we were back in Perth again for the recent Tri-Nations Test against the Springboks, that I finally convinced myself to write it, describing Turinui as "an articulate, intelligent player who has about him the stamp of a future Test captain". Two years is a long time to dither and doubt but then Turinui has given his supporters every reason to question him. Initially a lazy trainer, he looked out of place in Australia's 2003 World Cup squad.
Where Brendan Cannon was organising bare-chested photos of all the front-rowers, realising none of them would ever look so fit and trim again in their entire lives, the Turinui torso stayed coyly covered.
He appeared flabby and unprepared and Jones clearly thought so too, using him only once during the Cup campaign and then as a reserve in the meaningless romp against Namibia.
He was big on the punt then, too, Turinui, and I'm not talking about his kicking game. Some future Test captain he was going to be, I thought, when it didn't look like he would even have a Test future.
There were signs of a turnaround at the start of 2004 and, after coming off the bench to make just one tackle in the first Test against Scotland in Melbourne, he was given his big chance in the second when Matt Giteau was forced out with injury.
He made a line break, scored a try and completed nine tackles - but it was the four he missed, two of them on opposite number Andy Henderson, that sealed his fate.
Nine Tests went by without him. Initially overlooked for the spring tour, he gained a toehold in the Wallabies squad only after performing well enough for Australia A against the French Barbarians to earn an invitation to remain with the team for the rest of the tour.
Then Stirling Mortlock was injured, and Turinui found himself in the starting line-up against England at Twickenham in November. And this time his defence held.
This year, little by little, Turinui has consolidated his place in the Wallabies backline. There are still concerns about his catch-pass skills, although his neat off-load for Clyde Rathbone's try against the Springboks in Perth showed he at least is heading in the right direction.
But his defence is holding, his grip on a permanent Test position firming and finally, with parenthood giving him a new sense of direction off the field as well, he is starting to emerge as a team leader.
It's not likely that the Wallabies will be needing a new captain in the short term. George Gregan continues to frustrate his critics and perversely, given the Wallabies' gruesome run of five straight losses, actually seems to be growing in stature as a leader.
It takes admirable strength of character to maintain one's dignity in the face of the barrage he has weathered over the past two months, although a clean sweep of the spring tour Tests wouldn't do his survival chances any harm either.
But there is no doubt the search for his successor is well under way. Second-rower Nathan Sharpe remains the front-runner and it won't have been overlooked how impressively he led from the front when he deputised for the injured Gregan against Samoa this season.
Phil Waugh, too, has come into the frame and will firm as a captaincy contender if the experiment with George Smith at number eight that began so promisingly in Auckland continues to flourish.
While he and Smith are locked in an arm-wrestle for the openside flanker's role, Waugh cannot command a permanent Test position, no matter how much he warrants it. But if that nexus can be broken and a convenient way found to include both players in the backrow, then suddenly Waugh becomes a very viable option as captain.
Yet there is no doubt Rogers picked up on something of significance last Saturday night at Eden Park.
Turinui has a cool head in a crisis, he is an astute student of the game and, of all the Wallabies, he has the best grasp of the type of rugby Jones wants his team to play. Or, at the very least, he articulates it better than anyone else. So it may well be that the Wallabies unearthed more than a new five-eighth contender last weekend. It may be they also discovered their next captain.
