Stuart Barnes: Marika Koroibete is the world’s best left wing and mesmerised rugby with try-saving tackle
Marika Koroibete’s stunning display for the Wallabies against South Africa stamped him as a matchwinning star of world rugby and perhaps Australia’s most important player, writes STUART BARNES.
Sometimes sheer guts can count for more than genius. When a player gives his all to pull off, say, a try-saving tackle he has no right to make, the mood of the entire team can change. It’s a case of: “If he can do that, there’s no way we can drop our standards, even the slightest.” So it was in Adelaide when the world’s best left wing, Marika Koroibete of Australia, somehow prevented South Africa’s finest finisher, Makazole Mapimpi, from scoring when the act appeared inevitable.
The Australia left wing covered in excess of half the width of the field to force a knock-on with a walloping tackle that was the talking point in Wallaby and Springbok circles. As his Australia teammates engulfed their colleague to congratulate him for his shuddering defensive intervention, South Africans bemoaned the legality of the challenge.
The Fijian-born Wallaby did seem to hit the South African with his left shoulder. As Mapimpi dived for the tryline, his counterpart threw his body between man and whitewash. There wasn’t, as far as I could see, any evidence of an attempt to wrap an arm in the tackle. It all happened too fast for pure technique to play a part.
It was a challenge that put both players in some degree of danger. So it seemed to me and all of South Africa. Unsurprisingly the Australians saw it rather as something straight out of Superman. There was less interest in the act of the tackle than the headline-making heroics of the distance covered and the power displayed. Yes, it was reckless but at the same time it was mesmerising.
Downright dangerous play and extreme inspiration exist side-by-side. We like our world to be black or white; sorry, it’s a shade of grey. I thought it was illegal, but a friend and fine judge of the game texted in excited bold type: “The greatest cover tackle in the history of the game!” Watching the replay over and over, there might have been the slightest hint of both arms in the air, at the very least suggesting the possibility of a wrapped arm.
South Africans can scream themselves blue in the face and Australians can start a campaign to replace the Queen with their fabulous Fijian when all that matters is the interpretation of the referee.
Officiating is a subjective game. Right decision or not, there was no questioning the crazed reactions of Koroibete’s colleagues. From that tackle onwards, not one Australian was going to go anywhere but to the limit and beyond: that place where the lungs feel busted, the head hurts and the legs weigh a ton. (God, the game would be better without replacements for anything but injuries.) That’s a digression. Let’s get back to inspiration.
A minimum five points saved in the latter stages of the first half, five scored early in the second half. Again it was his non-stop working off the ball that created the try. Just as he sprinted left to right to save a try, so he set off in the same direction to receive a pass within threatening distance of South Africa’s tryline. Deceptively feinting infield before exploding into the space created by Handre Pollard being rocked on to his heels by the footwork, Koroibete was over for the try in a split second.
His influence was immense in both attack and defence and showed genius and guts working in tandem. Wind forward to the New Zealand game against Argentina later that day. The All Blacks were 18-12 ahead. In the 46th minute the Kiwis lost their shape from an Argentine restart, the Pumas scored in the corner and with an immaculate conversion the game was turned around.
In Adelaide, in the 58th minute, a South African kick-off floated over the Australia forwards. Koroibete sprinted towards the ball and made it his despite South African pressure. From the ensuing box-kick his flat-out chase forced a knock-on from Kwagga Smith. In the first half Koroibete had claimed another Pollard restart. Nic White’s box-kick was fielded by the Springboks’ hulking replacement No.8, Duane Vermeulen. The wing’s thunderous chase and tackle brought a penalty for Australia and a valuable 60 metres gained by the home side.
Koroibete is a mix of magic and muscle with never anything but complete commitment to the cause. In the series against England he was the Wallabies’ best player, as he was in the wildly fluctuating two Tests in Argentina. It is all too easy to consider the influence of men in the middle of the park, such as Quade Cooper and Samu Kerevi, but maybe the most important man in Dave Rennie’s side is the wing whose work rate makes it a joke to describe him as a peripheral player.
His aerial strength is such that South Africa’s kicking game can be neutered while his chasing ensures a bad kick becomes average and a decent one becomes good. Then there is the genius of his footwork and his feel for being in the right position at the right time. Saturday’s try was a fine example but it was the refusal to quit the cross-field cover, thus stopping a Springbok try, that marked Koroibete as the matchwinner, the inspiration for the other 22 blokes.
The legality of the tackle may be open to debate. The immense influence of the Australia left wing is most definitely not.
Originally published as Stuart Barnes: Marika Koroibete is the world’s best left wing and mesmerised rugby with try-saving tackle
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