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Woeful, disappointing, embarrassing. The Wallabies have served up 80 minutes of incredibly poor rugby and inept scrummaging in a comprehensive and convincing 30-6 loss to France this morning.
All the good work displayed in recent Tests against New Zealand and Argentina came spectacularly undone in Paris.
The Wallabies were weak in defence, pitiful in the scrum and handled the ball like Phil Tuffnell with a broken hand.
They kicked possession away constantly, with no gain, and offered little in attack.
The Wallabies seemed to run out of ideas with the ball in hand and most of their attempts to break the French line were unsuccessful.
I lost count of the amount of times Australian players dropped the ball, threw wayward passes, fell off tackles or passed to the French by mistake.
There were few positives in a hugely disappointing performance.
– The French played with pride and passion. They tackled stoutly and their pack was immense. A new-look French side dominated the breakdown and scrummaged like men possessed.
– The decision not to recall Luke Burgess for the European Tests appeared strange, especially now. Nick Phipps struggled, again, and is surely on thin ice. Scrum-half remains a massive headache with Will Genia out.
The likes of Stephen Moore, David Pocock, Radike Samo, Berrick Barnes and Siteleki Timani must be pushing for starting berths in the next match.
– The Wallabies were simply a rabble and their try-scoring woes continued. Conceding three tries and not scoring one the entire game is just not acceptable. The Australian scrum disintegrated just like the bad old days.
The English, Italians and Welsh will be licking their lips after this one.
Australia’s Spring Tour could not have gotten off to a worse start. It was a complete reversal of the free-running demolition of the French back in Paris in 2010.
For the Wallabies it’s a week of introspection and hard work. It won’t get any easier next weekend at Twickenham.
Follow John on Twitter @johnnyddavidson
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