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The hoary old sports cliche has that ‘teams make their luck.’
Only the luckiest of teams, like the Wallabies at the Melbourne Telstra Dome, have their luck made for them.
If ever there was a Test thrown away by stupid decisions by the opposition players, this Test was it. Ireland had 60 per cent of possession, 60 per cent of territory and attacked the Wallabies in the last minutes of the game with 18 phases of play – and lost out where it mattered most, on the scoreboard 18 -12.
The Channel 7 telecast of the Test showed shots throughout the match of a grim Robbie Deans (his usual demeanour during a game, admittedly) taking notes seemingly after every play. At the press conference after the Test a relieved Deans noted: ‘History does not record the detail. History records the score.’
For the record, though, history should record that the Wallabies were lucky with the way went about ensuring they lost the Test. Peter Singer stupidly ran a full-arm penalty in front of the posts on the stroke of half-time when the score was 15 – 7. The Wallabies kicked a penalty after half-time and this buffer of 11 points was enough to see them through to their first victory in 2008.
The buffer and what may be called buffoon play when Ireland had the Wallabies at their mercy. Two tries were lost, one of them when Brian O’Driscoll could not execute a simple inside attack to take the tackle and feed the ball on. There was a scramble on the Wallaby line with Cameron Shepherd lying on the grounds only centimetres in the field of play and two Irish players on their feet unable to pick up the ball and plant it across the line.
There were two five-metre lineouts thrown in crookedly towards the end of the game. The irony here was that in the first spell Ireland scored an easy rolling maul try from a lineout about 10m out from the Wallabiy tryline.
And then there was the long sequence of play at the end of the match where attack after attack was repelled by a Wallaby team that seems to have already the Crusader discipline on defence. There were no gaps and no penalties. Ireland kept on being repulsed almost single-handedly by Phil Waugh who came off the bench and probably made one of the highest tally of tackles of any Wallaby for the match, even though his was a cameo appearance.
Deans, once again, showed he is the master of using reserves. The use of Waugh as the unrelenting tackler was a master-stroke. He also brought on the old hand Sam Cordingley for the last few minutes too. Luke Burgess had had an outstanding first Test but a tough, old warrior was needed on the fielded to close out the Test.
The way the Wallabies played what was in front of them, especially early on in the Test, was pure Deans. This adventurous and skillful play, setting up two tries, gave the Wallabies the points buffer to save a Test that really should have been lost.
It was one of the replacements that identified an area where the Wallabies are extremely vulnerable. When Al Baxter came on, after 47 minutes and with the score standing at 15 -7, Gordon Bray, the factsmeister himself, stated that the front-rower had become the most capped Wallaby props ever, with 52 Tests. Any Test side that has had to use Baxter 52 times is a side that has serious problems with their scrum and driving play at the ruck and maul.
When the Australian Test side was announced I wrote in The Roar that the side was a relatively untalented group with an exceptional coach. Nothing in the Test has given an indication that this assessment is wrong, although the new boys Peter Hynes and Luke Burgess played very well.
I watched the Test with a relative who knew Jack Gibson. He told me that there was a cartoon character in the 1960s, an old nag called Radish. When asked about a team of journeyman players and their chances of winning the rugby league premiership, Gibson told a reporter in his laconic, insightful manner: ‘You can’t win the Melbourne Cup with Radish.’
Right now the Wallabies are Radish, with a master coach. Deans has four years to prove Gibson wrong. Given his record with the Crusaders, I wouldn’t beat against him doing it.