Opinion
After being flustered, dusted and busted at Eden Park last week, would the Wallabies be stronger on the sacred turf at the Olympic Stadium this bright Saturday afternoon?
This was, after all, where Cathy Freeman lit the flame and then lit up the track on her way to 400m Olympic gold in 2000. It was where Justin Harrison stole the ball from Martin Johnson for the Wallabies to beat the Lions in 2001. Right here was where John Aloisi scored the penalty to put the Socceroos into the 2006 World Cup. And here again, that Johnathan Thurston kicked the field goal for the Cowboys to beat the Broncos in the 2015 NRL grand final!
This was precisely the kind of magic we needed. Sadly, all we saw was All Black magic, pretty much from the beginning.
Less than 30 minutes in, the All Blacks led 24-0, from three four tries to zippity-doo-dah, zippity-zip-nothing.
Your humble correspondent happened to be seated next to former Wallaby World Cup winning captain John Eales and noted to him that at this point the Australian team was doing three times as well as his side had in 2001, as his charges had been down by that exact margin after only eight minutes at this very venue – and at that point had been lucky to get to nil.
That had been the foundation-stone for the subsequent, fabled “Test Match of the Century” as the Wallabies had come storming back to only narrowly lose the match 39-35. And, John, we might see from here the miracle I’ve been talking about!
I’d no finished making the point than it seemed that very thing might be in the wind, as Wallaby lock Jeremy Williams went over near the posts to close to 24-7. Alas, alas, only minutes later again, Williams himself was off with a yellow card, moments before the All Blacks scored another try ... and then – shoot me, now – yet another try, this one a runaway intercept, to go into the break 36-7 ahead.
Who scored all those All Black tries? From the stands, it didn’t really matter. It was simply an endless rolling black tide crashing onto golden shores, and regularly spilling over the try-line to put it down.
The key stat at this time, as pointed out by an ashen-faced Rugby Australia official, was that after this first 40 minutes, the All Blacks had made 24 tackle-breaks to just one for the Wallabies. The issue was not lack of will from our blokes. They had tackled themselves red-raw and on a few occasions had looked on the point of scoring, only for the ball to go awry. We were going all right in the forwards. But we were being killed in the backs.
Second half?
It looked seriously ugly just a minute in, when the All Blacks scored again. A 70-point humiliation for the ages looked on the cards. Eales stirred restlessly. In fact, the Wallabies managed to steady the ship on that raging black sea just enough for – if not quite respectability – we, the people of Oz, to retain some level of hope for the future.
A try each to Tom Wright and reserve back Filipo Daugunu meant that the Wallabies outscored the All Blacks 14-7 in the second half. If halves were sets in tennis, it’d be 1-1! And we’d left at least another four tries out there, gone begging, if only our passes had stuck.
Look, all up, it remained a bad day at the office. But it was not the complete humiliation we all feared. And compared to how we all felt at half-time, we’ll take it.
At the end of the day, though suffering badly at the hands of one of the best teams in the world in the first half, the Wallabies showed great guts and gumption to come back that far in the second half. They can compete on this stage, and there is some hope that we have the foundation we need for next year’s home World Cup. (And if you don’t turn up, Mark Nawaqanitawase, well, don’t get us started. We choose to believe this malarkey about you playing for another country next year is managerial manoeuvring. If so, stop him. He’s embarrassing you. But I digress.)
Damian McKenzie, playing at five-eighth, was the best for the All Blacks. For the Wallabies, the stand-outs were Harry Wilson, Fraser McReight, Joseph-Aukuso Suaaliii and Max Jorgensen.
Onwards to the spring tour. They are going to beat England at Twickenham. You heard it here first.
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