Flat Wallabies win the Tri-Nations wooden spoon

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 21 Sep 2009 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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New Zealand's Isaia Toeava, right, tries to fend off Australia's Lachie Turner in their Tri Nations International rugby match at Westpac Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009. AP Photo/NZPA, Wayne Drought

New Zealand's Isaia Toeava, right, tries to fend off Australia's Lachie Turner in their Tri Nations International rugby match at Westpac Stadium in Wellington, New Zealand, Saturday, Sept. 19, 2009. AP Photo/NZPA, Wayne Drought

The Wallabies were as flat as a board, and as wooden, during their deserved 33 – 6 thrashing at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium. This was the worst and most passionless performance by the Wallabies since 1998 when the Springboks put over 60 points on them.

The only ray of comfort in all of this is that Rod Macqueen was able to take the bulk of that 1998 rabble and turn them into the World Champions a year later.

This is the immense challenge confronting Robbie Deans as the bulk of this ply-wood Wallabies side is going to form the majority of his squad for the 2011 RWC. It all looked so promising two weeks ago at Brisbane when the best team in the world, the Springboks, were decisively defeated.

Now it looks very unpromising.

On the afternoon of the Test, as the weather was clearing and wind dying down to provide a perfect night for rugby, I ran into Rodney Cavalier, the chairman of the SCG Trust.

He told me he was tempted to have a flutter on the Wallabies as they were paying $2.50 on the dollar.

I’m about the only Greek I know who doesn’t bet and the odds didn’t mean much to me. But I did point out to Rodney that if the bookies were betting against the Wallabies, the law of averages was on the side of the punters.

The Wallabies have historically won about one out of every three Tests against the All Blacks. But since 2001 they have not won in New Zealand, with 8 losses (and now 9) on the trot in that time. I suggested to Rodney that in betting terms we had a law of averages (surely a Wallaby victory was overdue?) against the bookies’ gambling nous contest.

The All Blacks, also, were facing an unprecedented three home Test loses, a potential calamity for them that had never happened (not even in 1998 when they lost 5 consecutive Tests) since the first Test in New Zealand in 1904.

But as soon as the Test started, and this is not hindsight, it became obvious that the Wallabies were wooden and the All Blacks had a cutting-edge steel about their play.

Even the Daniel Carter missed first penalty and the Wallaby lead through a Matt Giteau penalty against the run of play did not change the impression that the Wallabies were just hanging on, feet and body over the precipice and fingernails beginning to splinter and slide.

The final two tries to the All Blacks came in the last 10 minutes of play and took the scoreboard to something like an accurate reading of the run of play of the Test.

Deans’ ashen features after the Test, too, told their own graphic picture of how poorly the Wallabies had performed.

What went wrong?

James O’Connor had a shocker at fullback and the All Blacks, especially Carter, made sure he had plenty of work to stuff up. Ironically, O’Connor was one of the few (only?) Wallaby backs to make breaks and beat a very strong and committed All Blacks defence from time to time.

Matt Giteau, once again, went missing in a Test against strong opponents. I’ve argued on The Roar for some time that Berrick Barnes should be the first five-eighths and Giteau, in my opinion, played as a roving, play-making winger in the Shane Williams mode.

My mentor as a rugby writer, the great Evan Whitton, reckons that Giteau would make a sensational outside centre.

Move Adam Ashley-Cooper back to fullback, bring O’Connor into inside centre, Stirling Mortlock into outside centre (mainly for his defence), give Giteau a licence to roam on the wing and with Barnes directing things, the Wallabies might have a backline with some snap and line-breaking potential.

The forwards did not contest the rucks and mauls with anything like the ferocity and skill of the All Blacks. It was suggested that the Wallabies were trying a new system of being more selective about which rucks they would really contest. If this is true then they were too selective in the choosing the rucks not to contest.

The backrow of George Smith and David Pocock and Rocky Elmson on the flanks was outplayed by the All Blacks backrow. Elsom and Smith were benched. Whether injuries were involved or the subs were tactical wasn’t clear. There were some monster tackles made by the three and some strong running by Elsom but the trio were not as consistent making the tackles, hitting the rucks and charging with the ball like their All Blacks counterparts.

The Wallaby scrum, too, so good against the Springboks went down so consistently I was looking to see whether Al Baxter had been a late replacement.

I thought the referee was remarkably tolerant to the Wallaby scrum. Hopefully this performance was an aberration. Perhaps players like Benn Robinson, who was substituted, had run out of gas.

The worst aspect of the Wallabies play was their total lack of passion and intensity. Perhaps Deans now needs to exert some tough love. Macqueen turned around his team of losers by bringing in a former fitness coach from the Brisbane Broncos who had the players vomiting from fatigue and exertion at the early training sessions.

I’ve always thought that the Wallabies are too pampered. They need some ruthlessness from the coach. Their Players Association prevents them from playing the same number of matches that their counterparts play in Europe, and even in New Zealand and South Africa. As a consequence the Wallabies often tend to find it hard to maintain a hard physical presence throughout a long season.

Somehow Deans, along with the Super 14 coaches, has to toughen them up.

For better or worse, the team that played so woodenly against the All Blacks is essentially the team that will carry Australia’s hopes in 2011. They need to get fitter, harder, bigger (it was noticeable to me how much bigger the All Blacks were), hungrier, and smarter.

Deans was the master coach with the Canterbury Crusaders. He has an enormous task in front of him to turn his current wooden Wallabies into the number one rugby team in the world, the rugby equivalent of a contemporary masterpiece.

He is finding out that there is no equivalent in Australia of the tough provincial system of New Zealand and South Africa (which resembles the Australian cricket system) which throws up players like the 27 year-old Tom Donnelly playing a blinder in his first Test.

There was a surprising lack of jubilation among the crowds streaming out of the ground after the Test. My wife who went to a cafe during the Test with some of her women friends in Wellington came back to the hotel later and told me she initially thought the All Blacks had lost, so subdued were the crowds walking away from the ground.

For New Zealanders, I guess the lack of exuberance was due to the relief that the All Blacks had found some of their former form.

And for Wallabies supporters, there was the sinking, desperate feeling that the Brisbane triumph against the Springboks might just have been a flash in the pan rather than the striking of a new golden Wallaby run of victories.

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