Was Stephen Moore’s decision to go for glory with a five-metre lineout against the Springboks in the last minute of an enthralling Test one of the best captain’s calls for the Wallabies in their recent history? I think so.

It ranks just below Michael Lynagh’s brave call in the quarter-final of the 1991 Rugby World Cup tournament against Ireland when needing three points to draw and go into extra time, the Wallaby captain called a back line movement that had worked throughout the match, and scored the winning try from it.

Lynagh’s call is better solely because of the occasion, a knock-out Rugby World Cup quarter-final where the winner takes all. Moore’s call, brave though it was, had nowhere near the psychological and actual consequences of Lynagh’s if it failed.

More Roar rugby:
>> Allanthus: Isn’t it great to have Test rugby back?
>> Saved by the bench: Aussie subs to the rescue
>> Sheek: Moore’s Marauders: Who dares, wins
>> Biltongbek: Wallabies represent the antithesis to Springboks rugby

But its successful completion does have ramifications for the Wallabies in The Rugby Championship, keeping them almost in touch with the bonus point-winning All Blacks. But more importantly, it provided the Wallabies with the confidence going into the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament in September that, with a current ranking of 6, they are capable of defeating the number two team in the World Rugby rankings.

The Wallabies have stopped a trend of three successive Tests and have started the Rugby World Cup year with a splendid victory. The momentum is forwards, rather than backwards.

Let’s roll the tape back to those dramatic last couple of minutes.

The Wallabies have clawed their way back from a 20-7 deficit with a penalty and then a nicely worked try scored by Michael Hooper to establish a score line of 20-17.

Matt Giteau is given the chance from 40 metres out to level the scores. But the kick falls short.

Only minutes later, with time almost up, another penalty is awarded to the Wallabies. This time it is closer and a virtual certainty for even Giteau to knock over.

In the coach’s box, the excitable Michael Cheika is yelling out: “Kick for goal!”

In the commentary box, Rod Kafer is yelling out: “Kick for touch!”

Wallaby captain Stephen Moore hesitates and then tells Giteau to kick for touch.

The Wallabies win the lineout and drive towards the Springbok’s try line. Phase after after phase, from one side of the field to the other, ensues. This is do-or-die stuff with a single mistake or a piece of brilliant defence by the Springboks placing the Wallabies in jeopardy.

Then the ball is shovelled out flat to Tevita Kuridrani. He gets low to the ground and drives forward like an unstoppable tank. He is held up short. He twists and under a pile of bodies seems to plant the ball over the try line. The last image of this effort shows the heap of bodies and an arm poking through pointing to the sky, with a finger extended in a number one sort of salute.

Then comes what seems like an eternity of reviews from the TMO. It is clear early on that the try has been scored. Why the further video reviews? Is the TMO going to rule against the try?

Then Nigel Owens, the excellent referee for the Test, is told the decision. He calls for the explanation to be set out again. Oh no! Is he going to over-rule the TMO?

My thoughts go back to some discussion that Owens has had with Nick Phipps about that halfback’s fleeting attempt to use his boot to clear a rucked ball. Phipps continues ranting at Owens, after the referee has told him enough. Owens discusses the matter with Moore. He is clearly and rightly not happy with Phipps’ idiotic behaviour, behaviour that has blighted his play throughout the year.

The TMO explains again. Owens listens. And awards the try!

Most of the immediate media commentary after the Test makes the case that the Wallabies were lucky to get out of the match with a win. I never buy rationalisations like this. Every match is a self-contained event. It is played with two 40-minute halves, which can sometimes stretch longer, as this Test did, if play continues when time is up.

The fact of the matter is that any team that comes back from a 20-7 deficit in a Test has done something remarkable. It is incredibly hard in modern sport to change the momentum of a match, once it has started slipping away down hill against a side.

For the first 60 minutes of the match, the Springboks were in the ascendency. Their forwards were winning most of the ball. They had the territorial advantage. And just after half-time, Jesse Kriel, a centre with pace and a step, cruised through some shaky Wallabies defence to score what looked like the decisive try of the Test.

This try came minutes after, but broken by the half-time break, of another Springboks try, scored by Eben Etzebeth, after a cunning little high kick near the Wallabies try line and an acrobatic knock back by Bryan Habana.

Cheika brought brought on Scott Sio and Greg Holmes to prop up a Wallaby scrum that had been faltering. In my opinion, a Sio/Moore/Holmes front row should be the starters against the Pumas.

The scrumming of James Slipper and Sekope Kepu was not good enough. They may be better around the field than Sio and Holmes, perhaps. But the first and most important job of the props is their work in the scrums and rucks and Sio and Holmes did this very well. At the end of the Test, in fact, Moore was comfortable enough with their scrumming to call for a scrum near the Springboks try line.

Will Skelton was given the hook slightly earlier. I had noticed before the Test, in the huddles and warm-ups that Skelton was smiling widely, somehow seeming to contemplate the havoc he was going to wreck on his opponents. All the shots he was going to fire, though, turned out to be blanks.

Had he been over-confident about his power and strength in the contact areas?

The Skelton experiment needs to go back to the drawing board. The first Wallaby lineout in the game saw him win the throw from a dart-like throw by Moore. But after that he was useless. He couldn’t get much momentum going with his carries. And with his defence, he seemed to specialise in flopping on a Springbok after another Wallaby had made the tackle.

James Horwill gave a lot of value to the Wallabies pack when he came on as the replacement, value that extended from the set pieces to the open play and driving forward rushes.

David Pocock was also thrown into the contest. He replaced Scott Higginbotham who was a disappointment. Cheika had devised a cunning plan of using Higginbotham and Scott Fardy on the left and right flanks, in the manner of the All Blacks use of Keiran Read.

The idea was to stretch the Springboks defence, and to use Higginbotham’s and Fardy’s running power to open up running lines for the Wallabies outside backs. But when Higginbotham got himself into a situation to use this tactic, he kicked the ball down field so far it went touch-in-goal.

I must say that when I picked by Wallaby XV for this Test, I had Slipper, Kepu, Skelton and Higginbotham in the pack. But they succeeded in playing themselves out of contention with their poor play at Suncorp Stadium.

I had selected, too, Hooper and David Pocock playing together on the flanks. And when this happened, the two combined so well, that the experiment should be repeated against the Pumas. Fardy played so strongly at number 8, as a third lock, that he, again in my opinion, established himself as the best choice for the Wallabies in this position.

With the backs, Will Genia, Quade Cooper and Rob Horne were replaced by Phipps, Matt Toomua and Drew Mitchell.

I thought Genia played well enough, until he was injured late in the first half. Phipps played with his usual zip and fizz. I just wish he was not so antagonistic with referees, however. This rudeness/arrogance is going to rebound on the Wallabies at some stage.

You can play combatively, as TJ Pernara did against the Pumas, without getting on the wrong side of the referees.

Drew Mitchell made a strong showing, after Horne had to leave the field with an injury that puts him out of the Test against the Pumas.

But the stand-out replacement was that of Toomua for Cooper. I pause here to compose myself knowing that what I write next is going to bring a torrent of complaint and/or abuse on my head.

The Quade Cooper experiment as the leader of the Wallabies to their Holy Grail of a triumph in the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament is over.

The Wallabies only looked like taking the game to the Springboks after Toomua came on as Cooper’s replacement.

Toomua did one thing that neither Matt Giteau (very disappointing with his goal-kick and general play, aside from one break and one clever pass) nor Cooper could do: he took the ball flat and engaged the Springboks defence with square-shouldered running.

I am reminded of the Russian proverb: the fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

In a brilliant essay on historical thought, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin argues, persuasively, that it is the hedgehogs rather than the foxes who actually turn historical events.

Cooper is the classic fox. He has all the tricks. He made one incredible inside pass to put Adam Ashley-Cooper through a gap to score the Wallabies first try. Another outrageous flick, late in the first half, almost led to a Springboks try.

Tony, the owner of the Queens Park deli and maker of terrific coffee, said something very true when we discussed the Test on Sunday morning. “The trouble with Quade Cooper is that he doesn’t like contact.”

This is the crux of the Cooper problem. He plays too deep and often panics and tries to pull of magic passes, rather than engage the line himself. He also runs across the field when trying to set up back attacks. Defences just drift across with him, waiting to tackle the runners coming from well behind the advantage line.

He is, as the saying goes, too clever by half.

If there is one invariable truth about rugby it is this: the side that wins the battle of the advantage line will win the game.

We saw this when Toomua came on. He immediately and aggressively attacked the advantage line. The result was a succession of Wallaby attacks that saw them score two tries and win the Test. This hedgehog application to winning the battle of the advantage line was the decisive change in the Test for the Wallabies.

Cooper and Giteau had relatively poor days kicking for goal, which adds a further dimension to the need to replace either or both of them. Toomua is not a Test goal-kicker. Christian Lealiifano, who plays at number 10 for the Brumbies with him, is not in the 31-man squad bound for Mendoza.

This leaves Bernard Foley as the only viable option to partner Toomua against the Pumas. Hopefully, too, Foley will not only improve the goal-kicking but all the kicking. Cooper’s kick-offs were poor and his kicking in general play was inaccurate, as well.

Someone remarked, very wisely, on The Roar on Sunday, that through injuries and replacing tired players that Cheika had actually got his best XV on the field at the end of the Test. There is something in this. It will be interesting to see what sort of squad of 23 he presents for the Test against the Pumas.

Although the All Blacks scored four tries in their victory against the Pumas, the visitors did score two tries from rolling mauls, presented a scrum that held up well against the All Blacks, ran the ball cleverly at times and presented a stiff and manful defence as they turned back wave after wave of the black tide rushing towards their try line.

Wayne Smith, The Australian’s veteran rugby writer, presented some interesting statistics in his article on Saturday.

Only nine of the Wallabies’ 23 at Suncorp Stadium played at Twickenham in the last Test of 2014. The 2014 Wallabies were very much Ewen McKenzie’s Wallabies.

Cheika is now able to create his own squad. It is interesting in this respect that he has added Tera Faulkner, the Force prop who can play on both side, and James Hanson, the Reds hooker, to the squad to go Mendoza. I reckon he feels that the front row, or the reserves for the front row, need some reinforcements.

The other statistic, a killer statistic actually, is that since 1996 the Springboks have beaten the Wallabies in only four out of 26 Tests they have played out of South Africa.

So it would have been a terrific achievement for the Heyneke Meyer’s Springboks if they had pulled off a victory at Suncorp Stadium, to go with their victory the last time the two teams played at that ground.

Put another way, though, should the Wallabies really have struggled so much into the 83rd minute to get their victory when home Tests generally go their way?

There is one other point to make, finally. The Springboks had the benefit of getting some of the rust out of their game in a match against an international side coached by Robbie Deans. The Wallabies were playing their first Test of the year.

Presumably, having stress tested many of their new systems under the pressure of an energetic, purposeful (but limited in ambition and skills) Springboks side, the Wallabies should be ready to take their ensemble game to a high level of ambition and success next week.

This is the hope, anyway, as the journey to Twickenham in the 2015 Rugby World Cup tournament continues.