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England's Jonny Wilkinson, right, tackles Australia's Matt Giteau, left, during their international rugby union match at Twickenham stadium, London, Saturday, Nov. 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
In the end the Wallabies defeated England quite comfortably 18 – 9 to win the first Test of this Grand Slam tour. This was a Test the Wallabies had to win. And they won it playing inventive, attractive and skilful rugby with a confidence that grew as the Test developed.
The Grand Slam dream remains alive, although the Wallabies will have to raise their game again to defeat the reigning Six Nations champions, Ireland.
That great rugby pundit Mike Carlton was reduced to calling for Robbie Deans’ head in his Saturday political column in The Sydney Morning Herald.
There was a genuine – and to a certain extent justified – unease about where the Wallabies were going this year. Six of their last seven Tests had been lost. And a loss to an injury-plagued, poorly-coached England side, would have had the knives flashing against Deans.
There has been, as well, a disenchantment with the quality of the play of the Wallabies, and the Australian Super 14 sides, that reflected, I believe, the feeling that the Wallabies just were not putting in enough on the field to justify their big salaries and their status as an iconic Australian team.
So there was a lot to be played for at Twickenham, a ground where England is hard to defeat even when the side is going through one of its bad patches. This season, for instance, England lost all its away Six Nations Tests and won all the Tests at Twickenham. Jonny Wilkinson has won 30 of his 34 Tests at the ground.
90,000 spectators crowded into the ground in the expectation of being the 16th player, as they have so often in the past.
England might have had a number of players out injured (but only a handful of front-line players) but the ground with its vast stands and its one-eyed supporters has been a fortress for the home side for 100 years.
At Fortress Twickenham, for example, England has won 10 Tests, Australia 8 and one drawn. In Australia, the Wallabies have had 13 wins and England only 2 wins.
And it was not long, a matter of only two minutes in fact, before the sounds of ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot …’ were resounding around the ground as Jonny Wilkinson calmly potted a drop goal to give England an early lead. This was his 30th drop goal in Test rugby, the most any player (including Hugo Porta) has kicked.
Wilkinson remains the master of converting field position and pressure into points for his side. The dropped goal was another example of the master at work. This was followed by a neatly taken penalty not long after.
In any criticism of the plodding, clueless play of England throughout the match (a criticism made, in fact, by the British journalists who are calling for manager Martin Johnson’s head), Wilkinson must be excused.
I thought he was magnificent. He kicked splendidly, tackled well, ran and passed brilliantly. He was a one-man band. But what a band!
Just before half-time the Wallabies had an attacking scrum in front of England’s goal-posts. There was a huge blindside which was being guarded by the massive winger, in build but not in talent, Matt Banahan. The obvious tactic was for Matt Giteau or Quade Cooper to run the blind and draw Banahan and put the Wallaby winger Peter Hynes in for an easy try. Instead, though, Giteau ran hard at Wilkinson’s inside shoulder. The champion made the tackle.
In fact, Giteau and Cooper made a point at running at Wilkinson who duly knocked them over every time.
The tactic seemed to me to be stupid. Wilkinson is a terrific tackler, as he demonstrated time after time. Why didn’t they ran hard at Shane Geraghty, a noted weak tackler?
The only explanation I can offer for this strange tactic of running at Wilkinson is that it was a tactic to wear the great man down. It seemed to work, if this was the intent, as Wilkinson was puffing like a bishop chasing a bus throughout the second half.
It seemed to me, too, that once the Wallabies got the lead they’d win the Test. I wrote in my notebook: ’58th minute. Crucial penalty by Giteau. Yes!!! First time in the lead 11 – 9.’
Then in the 71st minute Adam Ashley-Cooper just blasted his way through what seemed to be a white wall of English defenders, plaster rather than cement, to score the decisive try, which was converted by Giteau.
There was a lot of talk before the Test about Deans’ bold selection of Cooper at inside centre. The experiment paid off. Cooper’s tackling has improved.
There is still occasionally a headless chook aspect to his play, much like that of his hero Carlos Spencer. But Cooper’s passing and running gave the Wallabies an extra dimension in their attacking play.
The difference this made to the Wallabies varied attack when compared with that of England was apparent at the end of the match when the home side – finally – decided to do some attacking play.
But it was one-dimensional, aside from the interventions of Wilkinson. And with time up a series of phases to nowhere was ended with a chip kick into the Wallaby 22 which was gratefully marked and booted into the grandstands.
The win by the Wallabies was needed to encourage the team and its supporters that the Deans’ root and branch changes are going to result in a stronger Australian side in the near future.
Supporters of rugby in Australia needed a terrific Test like this, too, to renew their faith in the game and to show that it is not only New Zealand and South African players who are capable of playing winning and enterprising rugby.
The Wallabies will have to lift their game to another notch now against Ireland which will be pretty confident of ending any Grand Slam aspirations of their opponents at Croke Park.
The performance against England suggests that the Wallabies are capable of doing this but by no means is this a certainty.
The brilliant victory against the world’s best side the Springboks at Brisbane was followed by a pathetic loss to the All Blacks at Wellington, for instance.
Nothing less than the sort of form shown against the Springboks and against England in the second half on Saturday will be needed to achieve the second leg of the Grand Slam quest.