First of all I must apologise for not posting any comments immediately after the game last night. The fact is that I have just come off the EKG after having to have my heart monitored for the rest of the night after that duel between the Wallabies and the All Blacks. I was on the edge of my seat for most of the second half waiting for Australia to score the winning try they looked certain to get on at least four occasions.
In terms of closeness, and heart pounding stress, the game delivered on the expectations generated during the week. There wasn’t the free flowing running rugby that we expect in this day and age, this was test match football – a closely fought contest between two teams ready to do anything to win. First blood in the game went to Australia who managed to force a change in the All Black haka. Call it diplomacy, call it whatever you like, it was still backing down because of comments made during the week. Congratulations Connolly, you managed to get some points there.
Then, to make it worse, Australia spends two minutes warming up after the traditional ‘ka mate’ haka, delaying kick off. I’ve never seen that in international football before, and Nathan Sharpe this morning on channel 7 denied it had anything to do with the haka, and was caused by the Wallabies not being able to warm up on the field. Really? How stupid does the PR machine think we are? This was a Wallaby home game – if there was anything going on preventing them from warming up on the field beforehand that is their problem. The opposition and the fans shouldn’t be kept waiting because they can’t get the ground arrangements sorted out. In any event, they were getting hits on in the car park in the warm up they did do, I didn’t see anything special about what they did once they got on the part. Disrespectful at best, and probably just ill conceived gamesmanship that played into the hands of the All Blacks who appeared the better team for not indulging in such trivial gamesmanship, and took out the game. For more on that click here.
Full marks go to the Wallabies for finally attacking the All Black line out which has been a weak point for about a decade, and went into complete meltdown in the second half. They also got the roll on with a few rolling mauls, but I must take my hat off to the All Blacks, the effectively countered the drive and must have put in some work in this area of the game. It is impossible to know why, but New Zealanders just don’t seem to be able to throw a ball in reliably to the same spot or to where it is supposed to go so that the tallest people in the country can catch it, when they know it is coming to them. Surely this can be sorted out before the World Cup, and all game the All Blacks were running scared at line out time. They must improve here, this lineout problem has plagued the team for at least the last decade.
As expected the All Blacks dominated at scrum time, but failed to turn this dominance into points. They did force a few turnovers and this kept them in the game in the second half and was one of the few positives from set piece play, but I did see the All Black scrum go backwards in the final stages of the game after a few substitutions were made. They cannot get complacent and must get the new players in there to ensure that replacements will be experienced for Rugby World Cup 2007.
Good to see smoking Joe score a try after an ordinary Super 14 season and failing to excel as he did earlier on in his career on the international stage. As in past weeks, the try came from broken play and proved to be the defining moment of the hard fought test win. For more on that, and NZ comment on the haka and warm up debacle, click here.
Again, there were no All Black tries from worked back line moves, or from sustained pressure, the sole try resulting from a restart bungled by the Wallabies. It has been speculated that both sides retreated into their respective shells, and that the game could have been better if each side had chanced their arm a bit more. Frankly, if passes had gone to hand, Australia ought to have scored at least two tries. As a consequence, praise must be given to the All Black defence, and the Wallabies must have cause for concern as their star studded back line failed to break the resolute defence of the All Blacks. Quite fairly Ritchie McCaw was awarded man of the match for another great performance from the man that is easily the best All Black player by far. For more on that, and for McCaw’s after match comment, click here. For Henry’s comments on his skipper performance, click here.
I think that there will be relief across the Tasman in the land of long white cloud to get away with a win. Lessons will need to be learned from the performance if the All Blacks are to succeed at Rugby World Cup next year, but the win will be taken and New Zealand will be happy to retain the Bledisloe Cup. The team will undoubtedly benefit from beating the Wallabies in Brisbane, and again toughing out a win where in previous years they have not had the mental toughness to defeat Australia in the close affairs. What can the Wallabies take from this? According to Greg Gowden, it seems not a lot and that the Wallabies are miles off the pace, and were for most of the game. While it must be disappointing to lose having built up the team so much after the thrashing of South Africa, I think that this article is possibly a bit on the negative side. Judge for yourself by clicking here to read the full article.
Doubtless there will be more analysis of the game over the coming days, and plenty of comments to come. George Smith’s hair got a decent pull by Jerry Collins, who normally doesn’t indulge in that sort of thing, however Connolly has said that he wont take the matter further. There is no place for that in today’s game, but when you are as good as Smith people will do things to try and stop you from playing so well, as frequently happens to McCaw. Doubtless we will hear more about this, and I look forward to posting more information about that as it comes to hand.
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