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The Wallabies were truly woeful in Paris on Sunday, losing 33-6 to the French and getting schooled in a masterclass of rugby.
Lessons this week were in scrummaging, attacking creativity, and the good old fashioned steamroll in defence.
For anyone who had the pleasure of sleeping through this game, we can advise that the Wallabies’ scrum was about as solid as Spain’s balance sheet.
New IRB rules were introduced for this tour, that two props must be included on the bench. The intent of this new law was to prevent ‘uncontested scrums’ from occurring. It appears, however, the Australians may have misunderstood the memo as they contested zero scrums.
This culminated in a penalty try for the French in the 65th minute, putting the game out of the reach of the Australians.
Adding to their problems, there was negligible spark in attack. Kurtley Beale had a torrid time wading through the trenches. When the pressure’s on, he has a habit of turning in circles like an abandoned orphan, and it’s not a good look for the bloke.
For someone with so much talent, he’s being wasted. And it’s not necessarily his fault, there were a lack of runners either side giving him options and the forwards were plodding into the defence like lemmings, resigned to whatever fate the French had in mind for them.
Beale sent his forwards into the oncoming defence as though he was throwing shotputs as his men stopped dead on impact.
And in the backs McCabe never looked like breaking the advantage line. The French term fait accompli came to mind every time he ran and had you wondering what part of the wine-making country Matt Giteau might be in.
This inability to break the advantage line and the back-pedalling in attack was a triple-whammy for the Australians. It meant Beale didn’t have the time or the room to display creativity, the French were pilfering the ball with ease and most brutally it sucked the fight out of the team.
Hence the blow-out in scoreline.
Not taking away from a fantastic performance from the French, they have a habit of shell-shocking anyone on their day. If this team had met the All Blacks in November last year then most likely the William Webb Ellis trophy would be theirs and New Zealand would be closed for business.
That aside, it appears the Wallabies are still not able to put together a string of good performances.
The bookies will have England as decent favourites next week.
Join The Roar rugby editor Christy Doran, former Wallaby Matt Toomua and a cast of regular and special guests as they look at the biggest issues in the game on The Roar Rugby Podcast. If you’re looking for great odds on the next game check out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Chances are you’re about to lose. Set a deposit limit.