It’s taken 24 hours, a bucket of booze, and a re-watch of yesterday’s test match to get me far enough past the disappointment to write this post.
The reason why the disappointment was not just a sting, but rather a deep, jagged stabbing somewhere between the heart and the spinal chord, was that it felt like we’ve been here before; the Wallabies showing great promise, but ultimately not having the mental edge to take the game. And so it’s easy to think that nothing’s changed – Deans is a pretender and we’re going nowhere fast.
But that would be wrong.
We lost at Eden Park by just two penalty goals. A mixture of our own and referee Joubert’s brainfarts, relieved pressure that should have converted into at least a 15-20 point swing in the scoreline. The All Blacks made only one meaningful attack with ball in hand, and it resulted in their one try. The Wallabies had at least five, and for the vast majority of the game found space out wide.
The lack of All Black penetration was largely due the Wallabies defence, which was rock solid. They nailed the kiwis around the fringes, and if it ever got as far wide as Nonu, Barnes had the ugly bugger on the deck. There were only two lapses – for the McCaw try and Donald’s bust just before half time. That was it.
In attack, the Wallabies base level of skill verged on the excellent. The passing was deft, positional awareness and support play impressive. Ashley-Cooper, Turner and Barnes stood out for the backs, Horwill, Moore and Smith for the forwards. In the line-out the green and gold dominated and if you realise that Joubert’s penalties against Baxter should actually have gone the other way (video analysis to come), then you know that Australia dominated there as well.
But a number of other skills that we’d got used to so far this season were missing. The positional kicking game was no-where to be seen and Muliana & co. couldn’t believe the results they got from the high ball. Also ‘missing’ were some big names; Mortlock, Giteau and Palu back from injury didn’t have their best games. Burgess seemed over-awed by the occasion, and although I was swearing at his cock-ups live, these were fewer on second viewing and his service actually pretty good (see video).
It’s got to be said though that the use of the bench sucked once again. Probably the biggest impact players we do have – Polota-Nau and Waugh – never got out of their trakky-daks, and the backs cover of a debutant (Genia) and an 18 year old (O’Connor) didn’t bring anything to the table, perhaps the opposite.
Ultimately Australia lost (fark, it still hurts to say), and the mental weakness that gave the game away is of deep concern. However, what this Wallaby team should realise is that at Eden Park, on a windy and slippery night, they considerably outplayed the All Blacks in many key facets of the game. The question is, can this knowledge be turned into the confidence and mental strength required to take the 2009 Tri-Nations or Bledisloe trophies?
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Tags: tri-nations, video analysis, youtube
Matt a.k.a Gagger or GAGR (short for GreenAndGoldRugby, not a fetish)
Matt started G&GR just before the 2007 Rugby World Cup and has been enslaved ever since. You can follow him on Twitter here http://www.twitter.com/Matt_Gagger 
O’Connor must have thought he was playing for NZ, shocker of a tri nations debut.
overall i agree, wallabies played better but i still think they lacked the belief.
shouldn’t get any easier, with the next match in SA…
at every high ball McCaw was in the ‘drop zone’ causing problems, not illegal but just making a general nuisance.
It would be naive in the extreme to think that Brussow will not fill the same role when the Wallabies go to SA
Any chance of getting some footage of the scrum battle were Le Fuse seemed to get Le Fucked-over?
where are the thumbs wanna give you an up one coat.
le fuse was le suckered by a better prop…ref clearly never played the game.
gut wrenching stuff. Mitchell needs to go (Hynes? or even Shepherd) and surely if Baxter is continually pinged by refs they can’t persist. Bench – maybe Hodgson gets another go? Sharpe is past his best (give Caldwell and Kev a go together – tough as) with Mumm off the bench?
Whatever the case, Deans has some interesting decisions to make..
I also thought that the penalties against Baxter were pretty dodge, one of them Woodcock was on his elbow in less than a second but Baxter still copped it – of course you can’t friggin hold it up when the other guy is doing a military crawl at you!
The high ball was a friggin clusterfuck, Deans can hoof the ball a bit so I hope they spend three hours a day for the next month getting the ball hoofed at ‘em and catching it.
I thought Burgess did have a pretty bad day, there were a number of times he surely could have just wrenched the ball out and shoved it off to Gits but seemed to take forever instead.
JO’C couldn’t have had a worse debut but hopefully he has got it out of his system now
Overall I agree that this felt more than ever like the one that got away, but it is getting tired of feeling like that.
Echoing Gagger I fervently hope that the Wallabies take this as a kick in the guts and take from this the determination to really nail every fucker they see from now on.
No mention of the poorly selected Wallaby side (bench imbalance) which clearly influenced the outcome when Henry went to his early (and got great value out of it) ?
I also think the Tuqiri ‘thing’ has been downplayed and had a huge influence on the Wallaby preparation – its the first time I can remember a Coach NOT coming out and publicly supporting a player who has (for want of a better word) cocked up.
Seemed to affect Mortlocks game thats for sure….
I actually think Genia had a pretty good game for what he played with crisp quick service. As much as I like Luke Burgess – he grew up just down the road – i think he was outplayed off the back of Genia’s brief performance. If he doesn’t turn it around soon i think he would have to be displaced.
O’Connor’s debut was bad yeah but as Patrick says hopefully its out of his system and let’s be honest, by the time he came on the damage was already done. we were behind the game as soon as we bombed that second try and AB’s scored one playing into the wind.
I completely agree about Genia and Burgess.
Don’t blame the ref, don’t blame Deans, don’t blame anyone except eight Wallaby forwards who didn’t have the ticker inside their chests or the tocker in the top two inches to rip into the tackle ball skirmeshes like the ABs were doing to them. They monstered the Wallabies in this department and forced turnovers which made the Wallabies panic and give away dumb, kickable penalties.
With only ten munutes of the second half played it was as clear as crystal to me what the ABS game plan was going to be. Simple old fashioned trench warfare which they are the best in the world at. The Wallabies were like spectators at the tackle ball and they needed a massive kick up the jacksie to get in and show some fire and guts.
The ABs identified this area at half time and just went out on the paddock and did it. Had the Wallabies met fire with fire at the breakdown the result would have gone the other way, but no they thought they had paid for a ticket and could just watch the game.
I’m appalled at the lack of leadership in the Wallaby pack. Don’t they know when they’re being squeezed?
The Bledisloe can get safely locked up for the rest of the year and for the next umpteen years too because it’s going nowhere. There is no side in recent history that has been able to beat the ABs in 3 consecutive games out of 4 and it’s not going to happen in the forseeable future. The Wallabies are a joke if they think they can do it this year.
However, they did earn a point out of Saturday’s match and that might come in handy later in the TN comp. I think that’s still wide open and will be the only reason why I will keep switching on the tele; for the meantime anyway.
Hell, sometimes faith gets terribly misplaced.
I’m a fair bloke. When a team sucks, it sucks. When players don’t play well, I can see it. I’m not blind. Ask my Better Half how many times I back the ref when the heart says not too.
People didn’t play well in this game. On both sides.
Genial-Will had a far crisper (crispy?) pass than Bruge. What scared me was that I got reminded of Gregan’s slowness. We want speed out of that ruck.
King George was awesome. Yes, bias. But reality is, he was awesome. Everywhere. The issue is that so was Richie. And Richie dominates where King George assassinates.
But.
Above all other things.
I cannot believe that we can have one of the premier rugby competition games, a rivalry that has stretched back into the black and white mists of time, a match of purportedly the highest calibre (regardless of outcome) ..
AND NOT BE ABLE TO REF SCRUMS!
Unbelievable.
It was so bad that I was actually speaking the exact words of Crowls before he said them.
Somebody needs to sit hard on the refs.
Of course, the problem is, when is an ex-prop going to want to run around the field as a ref?
Like I said to my folks, who I watched the game with, “If I’m on the Battefield, I’m in the battle.”
The only way I can see it working is if they have a second ref to do just the scrums. He can be a former prop and have a golf buggy to cruise up the sidelines, then just come out and adjudicate the set piece.
Ha ha. Sounds like a great plan
dont think a golf cart will carry and ex prop, suggest VW golf car.
Bowed? More like bending over holding our ankles, at least in the rucks and mauls.
Did we maul at all?
If you can’t do tight forward work, you dont deserve to win.
Robbie’s bench selection has to come into focus too. Waugh should have come on instead of Pocock. Genia early. JO’C was found wanting. TPN at 8 even!
Sorry to say it but Waugh wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to what was happening. The ABs would have blown him away like a fly at the breakdown, just like they were doing to the entire Wallaby ack.
As for Genia on earlier, well I can agree to that. Burgess was like an old lady in a bath chair behind the ruck. Wtf is wrong with him? He needs to suss out his options way quicker than what he is doing. Frankly he needs to be dropped for the next test and told why. His act needs to smarten up hugely.
Apart from that the whole squad is going to get a working over when they assemble next week and they deserve it.
the burgess debate is overblown to the hills. he put in a couple of bad kicks and a couple of bad passes, he had horrible ball to work with and was still five times faster than the last decade of gregan. mitchell had a far worse game, including kicking, option taking and catching but where not getting stuck into him.
waugh would have worked better than pocock. he was invisable, at least waugh would have picked a fight or been a but more confrontational in order to disrupt things for a while.
I know you’re a Tah supporter but honestly Gregan was a million times better than Burgess is.
Gregan probably still is better.
gregan had a fly half who hit the ball running in a straight line. burgess has to hit giteau while he is doing ballet moves. bring barnes closer, let gits run the lines at 12 and hit gaps.
burgess has a better pass than gregan displayed for the last five years. im not backing him as a tahs fan, im backing him as a fan who wants players that can win a game. honestly “non-tahs fans” criticised the tahs for being broing this year, the wallabies are playing worse rugby than the tahs displayed, its across the team, two wins against italy and a win against a tired france pumped up egos as per normal at this time of year, but its been my opinion all along, deans isnt the man and he is being found out. NZ moved on from his and john mitchells coaching, now aus is paying them double what there worth to be average here.
circle of life.
I think burgess is a faster runner but does not have as good a pass as george gregan.
You cant tell me that the charge down, wasn’t caused by good defence and giteau’s poor decision making due to a lack of time having had to catch a ball too high and wide.
Giteau was standing in a conventional position, and wasn’t doing ballet at the time… you cant tell me gregan wouldn’t have got him decent ball 10 times out of 10.
And as for the tahs playing more excitingly than the wallabies? I dont think anyone will agree with you there.
well, you wrong there W…Deans is the man, the wallabies game have improved alot since he took over, they are playing entertaining and expensive style of rugby which is a good thing for rugby union in AUSTRALIA, and if the wallabies would have won last weekend, I’m sure you and all sundry would agree that DEANS is the man to take the wallabies to the 2011 cup, the wallabies still has time to build a lethal combination to lift the World Cup in 2011, and with deans as head coach, the approach and direction the ARU has taken will in the end payoff, if you disagree then who do think can lead the wallabies and why wasn’t he chosen by ARU…..
my opinion is that deans isnt the man.
he took over a crusaders side with a heap of all blacks players in it, two of which are mccaw and carter. there isnt many coaches in the super 14 who couldnt win or go close to winning a comp with the team he had on paper. eddie jones was succesful until he had to make something out of cattle that wernt up to the job.
the wallabies have only had good games against the lesser nations since deans took over, his best results were the end of year tour were a ref decision cost france the game, rngland are a depleated and under coached side and we lost to wales who on paper we should have won against if the players are as great as we keep telling them they are.
deans has us kicking for corners, our expansive game so far this year has been two set moves, both of which were handled easily against the all blacks. the wallabies arnt any more exciting than the tahs of this year. they just create more movement to cover for it. shame that movement doesnt include the promotion of the ball in any consistant way.
its always been my belief an aussie should have got the job. same with the force, i dont know why the rules were changed to allow a kiwi to coach an aussie side, it should be a pathway for an aussie coach, mitchell already failed at international level with an unbeatable team on paper and his assistant was deans who in another year we will still be making excuses for.
link, friend or even johnson could have done what deans has in the last year, this notion of everything changing is ridiculus spin. connelly never had backing or a long term deal otherwise he could have put more of a mark on the team himself. as it was he took over a player group were the seniors were untouchable and the results that followed showed that. oniel handed deans power, so poor results should fall on his back just as much as the players.
and once again, (acknowledging he had a poor game) starting a test match and putting up witht he breakdowns that were at eden park for 72 minutes is very different from being fresh legs in the last eight, so until genia (who i rate highly and believe will be the aussie half back in 2011) starts a match, the speed issue shouldnt be a factor.
WJ, first of all, whats happening in australian rugby is only for the australians to handle? Wake up mate, this is the new age, the times have changed. Its called professionalism in sport, rugby for that matter. Gone are the days you only can play for and coach your country of birth. A fine example, is your own Lote Tuqiri, J Rocket, Sivivatu, radike samo, jone tawake, joeli vidiri, and Brad Johnston, Greg Smith, Wayne Pivac, who coached the fijian sides of the past and many more….these guys who have put in time and experience to develop rugby union in the lesser known nations and its paid of. Brad Johnston improved the tight five play, Wayne Pivac took the fiji 7′s team to World 7′s glory with help of serevi.Rugby union would be boring if only the wallabies, AB’s or Springboks won the world cup everytime. That is why soccer is much more famous, watched , and played team sport in this entire planet. Its narrowed minded people like you who never help develop the sport of rugby union to the lesser nations.If the Flying Fijians had the finance, training gear, and Robbie Deans as headcoach, and also Gits and Barnes and Richie as captain and many more super stars, its not a guarantee that they will win all the time. Their are some players up north who can match up to their abilities., and come out on top. One fine example, AB’s and wallas going out together with the Fijians at the quaterfinals stages at the last world cup. The later having scared the shit out of those boks, and the two top seeds going down to france and england. The difference between you and me is, even if your team is f**k**g up all the time, you still have that faith that one day the wins will come, if it dosen’t than f**k it, so what man, atleast the development of rugby to the lesser nations is being done, to improve the rugby union game all over the world, and not just your precious team. How boring rugby union will be if the wallas and AB’s would win all the time. One fine example, rugby league, who gives a f**k. New Zealand are the world champions, well maybe the ozy’s themselves. THESE TWO NATIONS are just selfish and never really want to develop the sport, because the fear of losing to the Fiji Bati or the PNG kumuls is way more important. Back to rugby union, I just hope that one day, someone with balls up there in the IRB office, really looks into the development aspect, because whatevers happening in rugby union is f**k**g Bull-shit, just filling their pockets and not really caring who needs it the most, F**k**g Bloody Wankers.
Sweet az – the one paragraph shit is really tiring. Break em up a bit or like you say “C YA!!”
I think we have tried giteau in 12 and barnes in 10, it resulted in a WC defeat to England.
Sure Barnes has improved since then but not playing there for the Reds most of the season wouldn’t have done him any favours.
We lost that game because we were absolutely dominated at scrum and the breakdown, if there had been anywhere near parity up front our backs would have run all over the english.
But I agree, Giteau is the best 10 in the world, Barnes is the better defender in the midfield channel, Giteau is the more senior player so have him in the more senior role!
I can’t see how any player could run the lines from 12. For one thing you have one less runner to work with, you may have more space but you have a lot less time because the defensive line will already be up on you. Carter was tried at 10 in Hong Kong — no.
“Giteau is the best 10 in the world” when DC was away in france having a vacation and at the same time getting paid for it, a well deserved break for DC before he resumes his duties with the red and blacks for the NPC. But for the moment Gits is the best AUSTRALIA can offer full stop.
achillies are pretty shit injuries.
Who knows DC may never be the same.
gitue is not better thank carter so he cant be the best 10 in the world
Thank carter so he can’t be the best 10 in the world.
Thats his achillies! Thanking him.
Thank You Daniel Carter!
you welcome, lol
Thanks carter!
Now he won’t be best?
I’m confused. Maybe a little kiwi boi-curious
Why do the kiwis who comment here have such trouble with basic grammar and spelling?
Its called typing error, I am not a British man, English is my third lingo, you should have corrected every single basic grammar and spelling mistake that the kiwis jot down, when commenting on this blog, mr spelling B….
I just love hearing Wallaby supporters go on and on about what if we did this or what if he was playing or what about the ref. Harden up you lost. Thats football
When you have won two world cups you tend to have higher expectations.
If you love hearing it, then why instruct people to stop?
Typical wallabies supporter always living in the past, live in the now and now your losing. But thats ok cause “the group” is “nearly there”
We aren’t losing in the now. there are no games on right now. Thinking back to last week would be the past and i’m not supposed to ‘live there’ according to king kyan30.
And thanks for saying our group is nearly there.
You must have studied wallabies supporters a lot, first you say you love them, now you’re describing their typical behaviour. You’re the David attenborough of the rugby fan. I prefer to comment on rugby rather than fans, but each to their own. Maybe you could start your own blog on that very subject unless you’re too busy living in the now, or making out with your sister.
Gagger my apologies, will break it into paragraphs next time, cheers.
can i ask why you addressed myself to argue about world rugby development?
your reply had nothing to do with what i wrote!
Then name an australian that is currently better than deans and why wasn’t he chosen by the ARU?
WJ,You wrote that the wallabies had only won against the lesser nations since deans took over.
There wouldn’t be much of a gap between the “lesser nations” and your wallabies team if the IRB would have invested more and actually showed the lesser nations that they really cared about rugby development in their countries.
Thus, ARU would have fired Deans arse if the wallabies would have just scraped through to beat Italy or even lost to Italy. Why wait for the game against the AB’s.
My point here WJ, is, whether the wallabies had Deans or anyone else for that matter. The wallabies would still thrash Italy and beat france, but lose to the AB’s in Auckland.
This isn’t club rugby or super 14. These are test matches. The best players of every country play in these games.Well, it seems like the best players that the lesser nations can offer isn’t good enough to even beat the Australian A, New Zealand Maori and JAB’s etc.
You can’t compare the AB’s,Wallabies, Boks etc “BIGGER nations” game strength with the Italians, Fijians, Samoans, Tongans etc “LESSER nations” game strength.The rugby development in these countries are very much a big gap.