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Did I say 19 points? Oh ho ho! What a chuckle. The only people laughing louder than me (and probably AT me too), are the Scottish fans who quite rightly will be dining out on this victory for quite some time to come.
There’s also a few deranged giggles coming from the Wallaby fan section, and the men in white coats must be on the cusp of an influx of new patients from that bunch. And that tittering you can hear coming from the south? The All Blacks and Springboks giggling at the hapless men in gold.
Predictions? What a thankless business. And as if anyone could predict anything this Wallaby side is going to do anyway. Just about every time you think they must have run out of ways to twist the knife into the chests of their loyal supporters, they conjure up a flabbergasting loss to the 9th ranked side in world rugby, who never looked like scoring against them.
The Wallabies are fast becoming a scoff-fest of their own making, and the stream of scoffable items just never stops coming. Matt Giteau’s nomination for IRB Player Of The Year? Pfffft. The Bumble Brothers Horwill and Chisolm in the second row? Yuk yuk. The Wallabies ability to convert pressure into points? Har de har har.
The Wallaby team went into this Test match hoping to right the awful injustices of their quality effort against Ireland, and came away emphasising their complete inability to deal with even the mildest of threats. The comedy in the whole thing was that this Australian side was up against a Scottish side with basically no attack whatsoever, who never looked like scoring a try. Despite this clear advantage, the Wallabies still couldn’t put them away.
The pockets of quality in the Wallaby team – Wycliffe Palu, Will Genia, Rocky Elsom – were unable to disguise the yawning shortcomings in certain positions – Matt Giteau, Ryan Cross, James Horwill, Mark Chisolm, Sekope Kepu.
Cross is miles from being a Test quality centre. Contrast his meek surrender in the tackle with an Ioane or a Mortlock in damage mode, and you get some inkling of the popgun attack that Robbie Deans is forced to play with when the injury toll mounts. Coupled with Cross’ scatty decision making, (remember his turnover offload after gathering a loose pass from Genia?) you can imagine that the Scots must have licked their lips when he appeared on the team sheet.
As for the Blunder Brothers, Horwill and Chisolm, if you listen carefully you can hear the Benny Hill music somewhere in the background when these two get their hands on the pill. During one moment of slapstick, the ball was clear on the Wallaby side of the ruck when the Blunder Brothers entered and sealed it off from their own players. My head was shaking involuntarily at the hopelessness of it all.
During the week Matt Giteau was nominated for the IRB Player of the Year trophy and to his credit he modestly averred that he was unlikely to win. Against the Scots, it was almost as if he was playing to prove it. His option taking at pivot was again poor – kicking when he should have run, and running when he should have kicked. His first half field goal attempt when the Wallabies were hard on attack smacked of a man who had run out of options and didn’t know what else to do.
There was no setup, no composure about it, just an ill-conceived snap at the posts. As the ball evaporated out to the left, so did the Wallabies chances of converting their efforts into something meaningful.
Sure Giteau put Moore into a gap and he almost scored, but the gap was created just as much by Moore’s straight running as Giteau’s sleight-of-hand. His grubber kicks were way overweight, and placed in behind the traffic of a breakdown so few Australian chasers were able to get through in time to pressure the fullback.
As for his goalkicking, well, what to say? Giteau has never been a radar boot of the likes of Carter or Wilkinson, and so you always expect him to miss a few. But his inability to self correct when he started slicing under the ball and drifting it left was a real worry. Every miss was the same error, particularly with the final conversion attempt where he took so long to kick that the Scottish players were only inches away from a chargedown.
As I have said, there were pockets of sunlight amid the gloom. Wycliffe Palu was tireless (who thought a year ago they would see that name and that adjective in the same sentence?). His willingness to take the ball forward, and his effectiveness in doing it was unmatched by any other player, and he was the standout for the beaten Wallabies.
Elsom once again turned in a tradesmanlike performance, as did his hookers Moore and Polota-nau. George Smith was also effective, but his impact in the tackle compared to Pocock was slightly less and he is now a clear number two in the Wallaby pecking order.
Genia was again excellent in most facets, but even his quicksilver attitude couldn’t dispel the gloom. His replacement Burgess’ pass regularly floated high and increased Giteau’s uncertainty. Burgess also managed a cold drop in a promising position, relieving pressure on the Scots.
He wasn’t alone. Sekope Kepu also managed to get in the way when the Wallabies were hard on attack, and he backed that up by conceding a penalty in the subsequent scrum, thus becoming a virtual Scot for 3 minutes, as no player in a blue jersey could have averted the pressure quite so effectively.
Having said all this, the Scots used their only real weapon, hard and willing defence, to good effect. Whenever a Wallaby carried the ball forward, they were in real danger of being belted or having the ball turned over, or both. The Scots had plenty off opportunities to tackle, and tackle they did. At half time they had made twice as many tackles as their counterparts, and instead of wearing them down, it seemed to invigorate them, as they realised that the Wallabies (Palu aside) didn’t want to do the hard yards with the ball in hand or at the breakdown.
Eventually the pressure told and the Scots realised the truth of the worst kept secret in international rugby – that the Wallabies would implode if they kept the pressure on.
For the last two minutes, and with the match all but gone, the Wallabies finally conjured up the phases that they had been missing for the previous 79 minutes, and worked a try to Cross. It was close enough to give Giteau a chance at winning the match, but predictably he missed the kick.
If you look at the stats, the Wallabies probably should have won. But their inability to convert showed them to be pretenders in the chase for the Grand Slam. In that sense the Scots actually did us all a favour by throwing out any possibility that this team might be compared to the greats of 1984. They’re not in the same ballpark. Actually that’s inaccurate. In truth, they’re not even in the same postcode.
As for the rest of the tour, brace yourselves Wallaby fans – this could get worse.