The telling stat was - Ball Moved to Wings - Aus 8, Arg 0.
We don't know any other way than to fling it wide. In the wet it gives the chance of that runaway try happening. We never got the chance to return the favour.
Australian teams never learn to grind it out up front. It is rare for us to beat foreign teams playing this way as they are invariably better that us here. Frankly, there is a cultural aversion to it in our rugby; we want the ball to be moved wide and for the game to entertain and for it not to be a dour struggle.
Other countries don't have that luxury because of weather; they encounter shit conditions regularly and teams will not survive if they can't slug it out toe-to-toe in the muck.
Even with dry weather, some teams (Munster, Top14 sides in France, Aviva Premiership teams) choose to play that way, and the punters accept and relish the arm wrestle, the scrum battles, the territorial battle. It's a game fore "traditionalists" they say. Australian teams get derided for choosing to play that way, and when we have to, we just can't. We don't know how to. We fly into breakdowns to generate quick ball for the halfback to use, not to wear down the opposition. Our set-pieces are more typically thought of as a means to re-start the game and provide a platform from which we can attack; elsewhere they view those set-pieces more as a primary weapon to subdue and overwhelm.
I'm no English professor though.
