From noodles in Hong Kong, pizzas in Padova, revenge – served up cold – in London, to croissants in Paris and bitter defeat in Cardiff, it has been a spring tour of extreme tastes for the Wallabies.
The six-week rugby feast came to an end on Wednesday night when Robbie Deans’ rookies – in the absence of Test regulars including Stirling Mortlock, Matt Giteau, Nathan Sharpe, Stephen Moore and Al Baxter – savoured an 18-11 victory over a world-class Barbarians team at Wembley Stadium.
To Deans, though, the result was as irrelevant as his evolving side’s overall Test record on tour.
Three wins from five Tests may be of interest to the statisticians, but Australia’s first foreign coach is not one to measure success on scorelines alone.
Deans is all about “growth” and “opportunity”.
On that count – having increased to a healthy dozen the number of players he introduced to the international arena in 2008 – the former All Black had no hesitation hailing the tour a triumph, despite it ending on a sour note for props Matt Dunning and Sekope Kepu, who suffered serious injuries that are likely to sideline them from NSW’s 2009 Super 14 campaign.
“We’re not so much into outcome. We’re into what we do and what we stand for,” Deans said.
“And I’m pretty proud of what this group stands for, to be frank, and I think we’re underway to that end.
“Along the way, there’ll be pain. There’ll be gain. But the critical thing is to keep concentrating on what we’re doing and how we’re doing it.”
In “doing it” the Deans way, where footballing instinct and trust in teammates overrides the great emphasis on structure of more recent Australian sides, there have been equal parts pain and gain for the touring Wallabies.
In addition to Dunning and Kepu, Wycliff Palu, Timana Tahu and Berrick Barnes also suffered setbacks, each returning home prematurely, but their injuries allowed other individuals to shine.
The rugged Richard Brown, with just 46 minutes’ Test time under his belt prior to touring, proved a more than worthy stand-in for Palu, appearing in all but the clash with France, while Quade Cooper and James O’Connor stepped up to earn their first caps against Italy.
If Giteau was the Wallabies’ player of the tour, his five-eighth understudy Cooper was undoubtedly the revelation.
The 20-year-old’s match-winning heroics in Padova and steady encore performance – playing out of position in the centres – when thrust into the Millennium Stadium cauldron as an early replacement for Mortlock has added to Deans’ previously slim playmaker options.
Collectively, the 21-18 loss to Six Nations champions Wales was the Wallabies’ greatest tour disappointment, denying Mortlock’s men a rare northern hemisphere sweep.
But, for so long easy road kill for the world’s best sides when touring, the Wallabies still managed to post back-to-back Test wins over England and France on foreign soil for the first time in a decade.
The 28-14 triumph at Twickenham was arguably the tour highlight, silencing the Fleet Street press which had so derided the Australian scrum, and in particular Baxter, in the lead-up.
The victory also eased the pain of the gut-wrenching quarter-final loss to England at last year’s World Cup in France and earned the under-rated Wallabies pack newfound respect in Europe.
Deans felt the three wins from five Tests was probably a fair reflection of where his developing Wallabies were six months into his four-year tenure, which climaxes with the 2011 World Cup in his native New Zealand.
He hoped the Wales defeat and the tour-opening 19-14 loss to New Zealand in Hong Kong – where the All Blacks’ match-winning try came from a forward pass – would prove blessings and drive the Wallabies on.
“They’ve got a lot to be proud of,” Deans said.
“The whole experience has been great. They’ve all chipped in on and off the field. The dynamic has been good.
“And while obviously Hong Kong was there to be done, you could argue that we did it.
“But the fact that we’re putting ourselves in that (winning) position consistently now is the most satisfying thing.
“And obviously Wales, we didn’t finish the Test match series the way we would have liked, but the indicators are there and that’s what we’ll hang on to and we’ll just keep going forward and add to it.
“This group will go into the break with a real sense of purpose hopefully for next year.”
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