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The Roar

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Wallabies outpitch torpid French

7th June, 2014
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Former Wallabies coach Ewen McKenzie. (AAP Image/Dan Himbrechts)
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7th June, 2014
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In 1927, Professor Thomas Parnell of the University of Queensland in Brisbane wished to demonstrate to students that some substances that appear to be solid, are in fact, very-high-viscosity fluids.

Parnell poured a heated sample of pitch into a sealed funnel and allowed it to settle for three years. In 1930, the seal at the neck of the funnel was cut, allowing the pitch to start flowing.

A glass dome covered the funnel and it was placed on display outside a lecture theatre.

During the course of the interminable experiment, single droplets form and fall over the period of about a decade, which, if last night is any indication, is apparently about the length of an Australia vs France rugby Test match.

Boring doesn’t begin to describe it.

Dull? Perhaps. Ho-hum? Maybe. Irksome? Definitely. Certainly it was slow, tedious, tiresome, uninteresting and wearisome.

This of course is a terrible shame for the Wallabies because you can only play the side that is lined up in front of you.

One might want to play a scintillating, physical, fast-moving, memorable Test match which will endure for years and have the anoraks frothing in decades hence, but if the opposition can’t handle, won’t tackle, and doesn’t really want to play, then it takes a bit of the fizz out of things.

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The Wallabies scored seven tries to two, winning 50-23, which is a comprehensive drubbing in anyone’s language. The problem is that they were hardly tested for any of it. Folau waltzed over in the 19th minute as though he was playing backyard touch.

Hooper, Cummins, Beale and McCabe also made the simplest of work of finding the tryline, with Beale laughing surprisedly like a schoolboy who has stolen a cooling pie off a windowsill, and McCabe having the good grace to at least look at little embarrassed about the ease with which he added to his Test tally.

Indeed, the most golden moment of this Test match was tarnished a little by the inept French performance. 25 years after his father David played his last Test against France, Sam Carter made his debut for the Wallabies after several strong games for the Brumbies in Super Rugby, and was a deserved man of the match with a tireless effort, including a game high 18 tackles.

The shame of it was that Carter was given no better than a provincial strength team upon which to demonstrate his undoubted quality.

His response during the aftermatch interview said it all. “Link picked me for my workrate, so I just went out and did what I was told to do”.

Astute observers would have realised the truth behind the innocent comment, that not only did Carter do as he was told, but more importantly, he was allowed to do as he was told.

The All Blacks, Springboks and England would not have given the rookie such latitude in his first outing.

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The French were poor. Not quite as poor as the English of 1998 who were trounced 76 points to nil in an 11-try Brisbane towelling, or the awful Welsh of 1991, who were whipped at Ballymore 12 tries to none, but certainly not a French side of recognisable Test standard. There was no indication that they would pose any real threat to an Australian side which was in third gear for most of the match.

The reasons are sad and several.

Experienced players Fulgence Ouedraogo, Frederic Michalak and Wesley Fofana might have been reasonably expected to carry this French side to some sort of parity, but instead were rarely sighted and of questionable influence.

The situation was aggravated by the surprising omission of one of the world’s great sixes in Thierry Dusatoir, and of the powerful running number eight Louis Picamoles, both of whom might have been expected to cause trouble for the Wallabies through the 10 and 12 channels.

Not surprisingly, the French found it hard to make inroads into the Australian defence, running for just 450 metres in total. Australia, by contrast, ran for 685, aided by the French distaste for defence, as they missed a massive 13 tackles during the match.

With the ball, France were just as fractured. There was no evidence of any ability to close up, play phases, build pressure.

The French are known for their attacking flair, but there was no sign of this either. Simply put, Les Bleus played little rugby of any stripe – defensive, conservative, positive or otherwise – and questions must be asked of the strategic nous of coach Philippe Saint-Andre.

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Whereas the French were like a piece of dry white toast – plain and uninteresting – watching Craig Joubert referee was like walking barefoot over an endless floor covered with a thousand pieces of Lego. Could Joubert be any more painful?

Steve Walsh is abrasive, patronising and officious, but he has one saving grace which places him above every other referee in the pantheon, and that is that he makes decisions. On several occasions, when faced with the option of going upstairs or just awarding the try, Walsh backs his instinct and gives the try, most often giving benefit of the doubt to the attacking team.

Joubert is the Bizzarro-Walsh who does the opposite. When faced with the choice of awarding a try or going upstairs, Joubert almost always opts out and lets the video guy do the hard yards. Don’t ever ask him to a movie or to dinner, because when it comes to making a decision, he is so dithery it is staggering.

The pinnacle came last night when Joubert referred the late try to Morgan Parra.

After an age of backwards and forwards, and endless replays, Joubert was clearly heard to say “Well, I saw a part of the ball touch the line, so it is a try”. Less charitable reviewers would ask why the bloody hell he didn’t just award it in the first place then, but as I say, they would be the less charitable.

Of course, the real horror in all of this was that it followed just minutes after New Zealand and England had fought themselves to a standstill in a Test match of rare quality at Eden Park. This Test was physical, fast, skilful and tense, going right down to the wire, before the All Blacks snatched a cruel win 20-15 courtesy of a Conrad Smith try.

On that form, and given the doubts over the likes of McCaw, Nonu, Read, Smith et al to get through unscathed to next year’s World Cup, England must be firming in the betting.

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By contrast, France have allowed us to see almost nothing of what this Australian team might be able to do in a real Test match, and after Saturday’s snorefest, they also show no signs of filling stadiums in the next few weeks.

For Australian rugby fans faced with the prospect of a repeat performance in Melbourne next week, just remember, there’s also a drop of pitch slowly dripping out of a beaker at Queensland University. Not quite as entertaining perhaps, but not far off.

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