Sharelle McMahon secures lineout possession
Diamonds by name, Diamonds by nature. What a credit to Australia our netball chicks are. When the going got tough in the far reaches of Outer Invercargill yesterday the Diamonds got going in a tense series decider.
Each time the Silver Ferns came back into the game and threatened to overtake Australia they stepped up the pressure and returned with a counter. It ended 47-46 and won them the series 3-1, with a dead rubber to play. It’s a pity the Wallabies aren’t made from the same stuff.
The Wallabies were wearing the same green and gold uniform as the Diamonds, except the gold could best be described as yellow as they meekly surrended to an All Black side that had recently been called the weakest in years.
The All Blacks performance on Saturday night was certainly not weak, it was outstanding and they delivered the sort of backs to the wall effort you expect from champions. For the All Blacks it was in fact outstandingly easy.
I have not seen such a poor effort in recent memory by the Wallabies, and there have been plenty of them over the last few years. This display was spineless. The Wallabies had shown glimpses of improvement in their losing Tri-Nations games and certainly some substance against the Springboks a week or so ago. There was also a couple of reasonable efforts against the Italians and French early in the season.
The expectation was rising that they would finally put together back to back wins. You thought they had the potential to win this match. You’d also think they’d be going hammer and tongs to prove how far they had come this season under Robbie Deans and be hungry to defeat the All Blacks in NZ for the first time since 2001 – eight long years!
Forest Gump said life was like a box of chocolates and that certainly seems to be the case with these Wallabies, of the soft centred variety. I was actually not expecting a Wallaby win on Saturday although I thought it could have been within them. I was expecting commitment, effort, toughness and some degree of capability. We got none of that (apart from a couple like TPN and Rocky). Nah, bugger it…let someone else do the heavy lifting. We’re still getting paid our retainer and bonuses so what does it matter!
Like you, I have been utterly let down by the kak they served up and the waving of the white flag. It was un-Australian. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more!
You know, it’s all about expectations. Graeme Henry and Co have copped a hammering this season because everyone expects the All Blacks to be firing and winning, and when they’re not it is just not acceptable. They are successful year after year because rugby is their national game, their depth is tremendous in the provinces and their competitions are top notch. They are physical and abrasive people on the rugby park also in part due to their polynesian and rural heritage. They are the benchmark which everybody (Springboks included) judges their rugby status.
In 2009 the All Blacks have been ordinary against the Italians, French, Wallabies in some matches and of course the Springboks. This is not how it is supposed to be. Our expectations of the Wallabies are of course a lot lower. We don’t usually beat the All Blacks and very rarely at their place. However, we have delusions of grandeur which a couple of RWC wins have contributed to clouding our vision. We get a sniff of success and incessently talk it up in the media only to be disappointed when we fail miserably to live up to those raised expectations. And it seems that it is acceptable in Australian rugby to lose regularly.
What does all this say about our rugby system? It says we are frequently mentally soft, take the easy options and when the pressure’s on we fold. It says we are unable to deliver a consistent dominant physical performance apart from the odd exception – Twickers last year for example. One Kiwi paper called us ‘pampered poodles’ and, you know, they may not be too far from the truth. In the NZ Herald team of the Tri-Nations we had one player selected, Adam Ashley-Cooper.
They are laughing at our weakness and think there’s no way we’ll pose a threat at the next RWC. That’s too early to call but in reality our rugby this year is in the doldrums from Super 14 to Tri-Nations. It would have been nice to have that win on Saturday to confirm our growing potential. All it did was confirm our vulnerabilities. Players promoted beyond their years and others sitting on the bench or not selected who would have been far better occupied fighting in the trenches.
Kiwi view
Graeme Henry and Co were one loss away from catastrophe. There would have been a huge clamour for his head, or those of his assistants, and the NZRU would probably have had to act. Today he has been reprieved and is basking in glory. The good news may be that Henry and team are still there. It is possible that wins over a weak Wallaby side mist the problems that have beset the All Blacks this year and help to exclude renewal. That may be one of our only means of redemption.
Until we increase our depth via more widespread and quality competitions; until we start consistently earning our inflated salaries; until we dump the hair gel; and until we start selecting players with fire in their belly (if we can find any) I fear that Wallabies matches like Saturday’s will continue to bedevil us.
It will be interesting to see when Deans announces his 40 man Spring tour training squad this week whether he dumps any of those he holds responsible for Saturday’s outrage.
And I wonder how Sharelle McMahon would go on Mitchell’s wing?
PS: This rant is cathartic and has made me feel better……..
Tags: adam ashley-cooper, fight, robbie deans, tri-nations
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Fantastic performance by the Diamonds. A great win over the Silver Ferns. I watched that match live on tv.
Those ladies are fit, fast, and very talented. Handle pressure when its dished out to them easily and are playing like world champs should.
Congrats Diamonds on that superb effort.
Congrats G&GR for making top 20.
Cheers Lance.
As much as I hate to say it, the better looking ’shelias’ won.
After watching that game, is there anymore room for a kiwi, or is Australia full of South Africans, are the kiwis coming in second. My uncle Sir Joh B Elky can’t even spell his name mate
Diggers/Anacs all the way! Share and share alike (sheep).
Yeah, the Diamonds performance was outstanding against a very fired up Silver Ferns out for revenge. And it was very close to a third string Diamonds side at that.
I was very pleased that the umpires kept the game in hand and there were not nearly as many incidents of players spilling all over the floor as there were in the previous matches.
It’s supposed to be a non contact sport.
Maybe Sharelle McMahon should be enlisted to do a series of motivation talks to the WBs. They wouldn’t like her venom being spat at them for being lambs to the slaughter.
But they need something like that.
Anyway back to the rugby. Your vitriolic take on the Wallabies outing in Wellington LF took my breath away. But you are just so right. What were these guys thinking of?
Actually when the camera panned over the WB team during the singing of the national anthems, I thought then that James O’Connor looked like he needed to visit the toilet. I’ve neve seen so much stress on a player’s face before a test match.
I think that the whole team including the coaches needs to be lined up in a room with the Board of the Australian Rugby Union with a video replay being showed to them frame by bloody frame and with them being asked individually and personally wtf they were doing when this or that episode in the match was being played out.
They humiliated Australia last Saturday and they need to feel some of that humiliation themselves.
You’re right LF they were soft centred chocolates and that’s not my experience of Australians. Just the opposite in fact. Every Australian I’ve met in sport has been a hard nosed, uncompromising, unforgiving bastard.
That’s the last thing the WBs were last Saturday.
Robbo – I generally like to take a balanced viewpoint of things and am not normally this angry about being defeated in a test match. But the way they just gave up beggars belief.
I’ve tried to encapsulate what I think, what the commentators are saying and what you guys out there are feeling. Most of us have had a rant on Gagger’s ‘Woeful Wobblies’ post, but I couldn’t stop myself putting something up.
There is talent in the team but it was just a lack of application and ticker.
Pretty desperate stuff guys when you have to resort to getting excited about a games that sheilas play……mind you put Norma Plummer in the Wobblies front row and that would be intimidating for the opposition……she’s got a face that’s broken a thousand mirrors but never a heart…..
Dexter – I think we need to establish the eligibility of Doc Sock for the Wallabies. Do you think he’d meet the residential qualification? Imagine how devastating he’d be in the front row in tandem with Norma?
Last heard of in Townsville I think Lance. I am sure he would have drunk enough Aussie beer and told enough lies to meet the residential qualification. Maybe he’s over in your patch on a quest to find Keith Murdoch to swap a few war stories and to get a few propping tips. His breath alone would stop a locomotive so he might be the saving grace for the Wobblie’s front row.