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Wallabies captain James Horwill applaudes the Ireland players from the field following the Rugby World Cup Pool C match between Australia and Ireland (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Oh Wallabies. You had to do it, didn’t you? You just… I mean you… why couldn’t… see what you’ve done? I’m too incoherent with rage and sorrow to even type a meaningful sentence.
You know what the Wallabies are? They’re that girl. The one you thought was different to all the girls you’d known before. The one who was beautiful, and smart, and funny, and who made you feel good about yourself with her kindness and quick wit.
The one you thought you could finally settle down and trust, and be happy with, without the neuroses and fear and panic attacks that had accompanied every other girl you’d known.
The girl you thought was The One… until you walked into the laundry at Belinda’s party and found her enjoying the company of your worst enemy with her ankles around her ears.
That’s the Wallabies. They made us fall in love with them, they gave us cause to dream of a better future, then they ran out onto Eden Park and shagged Craig Steffensen in front of the whole world.
And they made us cry. Oh how we cried. Tears of bitter disappointment. Tears of naked grief. Tears of betrayal. How could we have been so foolish as to fall for the same old lines? It was Garrick Morgan all over again.
And look, I don’t want an apology from the Wallabies. No, it’s gone too far for apologies. All I want is for them to understand what they’ve done. There’s an old saying I like to bring out at times like these: “It’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how your actions affect me personally”; and I think that’s more apt today than ever.
I’ve been wounded, Wallabies, and I just want you to understand just how I’m suffering because of your thoughtlessness and unstable front row.
Here is the real crux of the debacle: there is a script to Wallaby World Cup campaigns, and Ireland plays a very real and vital part in that script: their role is to be the plucky underdogs who almost get there but in the end not quite because the Wallabies are just a little bit too classy.
The best example of this was Lansdowne Road in 1991, when the Australian team played a hilarious rugby variation of the dollar-bill-on-a-string trick on the men in green, letting them take the lead with a few minutes to go and sending the crowd into paroxysms of joy, only to then chucklingly snatch it away again.
That’s the way it works, in World Cups: Ireland impress with their enthusiasm, Australia gets worried, Ireland gets confident, Australia wins, Greg Growden writes an article about how lucky Australia was and that they’ll have to play better than that to beat a proper team.
That’s how it goes, and these Wallabies went and deviated from the script like some mad drunken Theatresports troupe. At 6-6 I wasn’t too worried. At 6-9 I was still fairly sanguine. Even at 6-12 I was pretty sure that it was all part of the script, that that touch of class would spring forth at the crucial moment and carry Australia to victory.
Where was it? Where was that touch of class? I didn’t see any class. I saw what I thought might have been class, when Quade Cooper slipped a tackle and released an arm to throw one of his brilliant flick passes; but that turned out not to be class – it was just one of Cooper’s regular attempts to give the members of the crowd some catching practice.
Apart from that, not a skerrick of class. Inept goal-kicking, sure. Collapsing scrums, loads. Enormous men tiptoeing around rucks and mauls as if afraid of breaking a nail, definitely. But class? Where was it?
Where was the slick, flair-ful Wallaby team we’d been promised? Where was our beloved team of winners? Sitting on the dryer with its skirt hitched up, that’s where. Reaching into our chests and ripping our hearts, that’s where. Prancing about the place checking its hair in the mirror, that’s where.
It’s too much to bear. I can’t go on throwing myself heart and soul into these relationships, only to have them blow up in my face. I can’t keep on giving and giving, when all the Wallabies do is take. I need to stop believing in silly fantasies like love and commitment and straight lineout throws, and live in the real world.
Wallabies, we need to take a break.
Just until tonight’s game, mind you.