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Wallabies' David Pocock watches as Wales' Stephen Jones is tackled against Australia during their international rugby match at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff, Wales, Saturday Nov. 6, 2010. (AP Photo/Tim Hales)
In the end, this first Test of the northern hemisphere part of the Wallabies tour was won comfortably enough with an Australia 25 – Wales 16 scoreline. And at the end of the match the Wallabies had several penalties awarded to them that were comfortable shots at goal. But they went for a try.
The Welsh defence held and a 9-point margin it was.
The measure of how comfortable the victory was is that only occasionally were the crowd moved to chanting or song. For most of the Test there was a sort of stunned silence as the home side was expertly put to the sword.
But it could have all ended in tears for the Wallabies.
With minutes to play and the score line 22 – 16 Martyn Williams got his foot to a loose Wallaby pass just outside the Wales 22. The Welsh defenders suddenly turned into attackers. The ball was hacked on. A Wallaby fell on the ball only metres away from the tryline. There were more Welsh jerseys around the melee than Australian.
A try for Wales was in the offing. And with the conversion Wales could have gone into an unlikely lead.
But a Welsh player right beside Williams was a foot or so, not much, in front of the kicker. The excellent referee Wayne Barnes spotted the infringement. The Wallabies came back for the penalty and the game was out of reach of Wales.
Despite this, the Wallabies were always in control of the Test.
They won 55 per cent of the possession and won the turnovers 21 (David Pocock in the main) to 9. Two Wallabies tries were scored from turnovers.
There was a sense of deja vue in all of this. Then I remembered that this was the way the Canterbury Crusaders punished oppositions when Robbie Deans was coaching them to five Super Rugby titles.
The Crusader/Wallabies absorbed the Welsh one-off smashes up the field. There were a couple of missed first up tackles earlier on (Quade Cooper go to the back of the class, again). But generally Wales never looked like doing much with the ball. They recycled it well enough setting up 94 rucks/mauls to the Wallabies’ 87.
But every now and again, Pocock would come in quickly on an isolated runner. He planted his feet wide like a weight-lifter and then dug expertly for the ball, and often won it. So good was his technique that Barnes actually complimented him on it at one stage in the second half.
Another facet of the Wallabies’ play that had a Crusders feel to it was the kicking for position.
In Hong Kong the Wallabies kicked only three balls to the All Blacks back three all game. But Cooper and Giteau kicked quite frequently. In all the Wallabies kicked 19 times to the 25 times by Wales.
I took from this that Deans had calculated that the only way Wales could score was from penalties and tries scored from close to the Australian tryline. With at least five of their normal starting players out injured, including the brilliant running fullback Lee Byrne, this Wallaby tactic of kicking for position made sense. And, more importantly, it worked.
Most of the comments on The Roar and by the leading Australian rugby writers were critical of the Wallabies’ play.
It certainly lacked the sparkle and elan of the Hong Kong victory. But there are many ways to skin a cat, depending on what sort of cat you want to skin. The way to beat this under-powered Wales side was to squeeze them out of the match. The Wallabies did this by not giving Wales much to play off.
I rather like this approach.
The Wallabies showed that there was some thought going into their game plan. They gave up the one-size (the total running game) fits all situations method. In a sense this was the sort of grinding it out victory teams need to achieve if they want to win the seven-straight matches that claiming a World Cup triumph requires.
As an aside, I would put the All Blacks defeat of England and the Springboks win over Ireland in this same category of a grinding it out sort of victory.
What supporters here in Australia need to understand is that there is a much higher degree of difficulty involved in defeating one of the northern hemisphere powers on their home grounds.
There have been decades, for instance, where good England sides just could not defeat Wales at Cardiff. It is very rare that one of the Home Unions side is totally over-run playing at home, as they so often are when playing in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand.
The one obvious cause for concern for the Wallabies was the scrum.
There were no excuses this Test (as there were in Hong Kong) for a delayed call of en-GAGE that could be blamed for the collapsed scrums and the penalties conceded. The Welsh pack, apparently 7.6kgs a man heavier than the Wallabies, gave them a rare hiding.
The Wallabies were penalised seven times in the scrums and managed to win only three of their own scrums.
All the penalties were justified.
Stephen Moore apparently twitched a muscle during the warm-ups and Saia Faingaa had to move forward from the reserves bench to the starting front row. Faingaa is not a good scrummer. Moore is a good scrummer. But surely this one change wasn’t so critical as to entirely destablise the Wallaby scrum?
It was noticeable that the Wallaby loose forwards were popping their heads up quickly and not giving the front too much help with some hefty shoving. I’ve always had my doubts too about Nathan Sharpe as a pushing second rower in the Bakkies Botha/Brad Thorn mould.
Whatever the problem is, it needs to be sorted out for next weekend.
England rely on their scrum to batter oppositions into submission. It was strong against the All Blacks and actually shoved them around a bit towards the end of the match. As the All Blacks scrum is a much better scrumming unit than the Wallaby pack, it could be a long afternoon at Twickenham, with the vast crowd roaring out on the John Bulls of the front row as they attempt to pound their opponents into the turf.
This summary can’t finish without a criticism of the lack of sportsmanship on the part of the Welsh rugby union and the Wales team to the Wallabies.
The Wallabies were presented with a pitch that cut up so much, even early on, after scrums that Barnes called to his assistants to get repairs down on it as soon as possible. This was gamemanship bordering on cheating by Wales who knew their side just didn’t have the pace around the field to match it with the Wallabies.
The Millennium Stadium has a roof. This roof was left open during the week when it rained a lot, and during the game. Again, you ask what is the purpose of this gamesmanship. Why have a stadium with a roof and then leave it open for the pitch to become soaked?
Then when the Wallabies accepted the Bevan Cup none of the Welsh players remained on the field to acknowledge the victory. This show of disrespect makes a mockery of the proud Welsh tradition of embracing sides that play rugby in the right spirit, which the Wallabies did.
So the Wallabies are still on song for an unbeaten tour, even if they missed a few beats in their play at Cardiff.