Both the coaches were disappointed about the 12-12 result of the first Bledisoe Cup Test at the ANZ Stadium on Saturday night. But they shouldn’t have been.
For the Wallabies, the draw stopped their run of seven-straight victories. Rod Macqueen’s magnificent Wallabies had 10 victories in a row, a record for Australia that will probably last for a long time.
And the Wallabies had a terrific chance to win the Test when they had a scrum near the All Blacks line and posts. They, finally, got a good hook from the scrum. Why didn’t they just set up a drop goal? Instead they ran the ball and conceded a turnover penalty.
For the All Blacks, who bravely tried to run the ball from inside their 22 with time up, the draw ends their fabulous run of 17 straight victories. This is the second time the Wallabies have stopped the All Blacks at 17 wins in a row.
Nick Mallett’s Springboks went 17 straight, too. So it is fair to make the point that this mark probably represents the high tide for sequences of wins.
But there were many pluses in the result for the Wallabies. The first one was that the pack (except for a couple of scrums) held up very well against an All Blacks pack that was more used to the wet, cold conditions than the Wallaby forwards.
Sam Carter is proving to be the tough, hard-working and powerful second rower the Wallabies have been looking for since Nathan Sharpe retired.
The Wallabies won 52 per cent of possession, after being well behind in the first 25 minutes. They also had 66 rucks and mauls compared with the 24 for the All Blacks. They had 410 run metres compared with 184, 427 kick metres to 538, 13 turnovers to 13 and 24 tackles made to 65.
The All Blacks had to make far more tackles. They have to contest far more Wallabies rucks. And they made far less running metres than the Wallabies.
These are the statistics that reveal that the Wallabies were able to play their ball-in-hand game with some success, despite the conditions. On a drier night the Wallabies would probably have made more of their chances than they did. For it is easier to kick the ball away, as the All Blacks clearly did, than it is to run it when it is raining and cold.
I liked the way, too, the Wallabies came straight out and tried to move the ball around. The first kick-off went into touch and the Wallabies immediately did a quick throw-in which, momentarily, caught the All Blacks by surprise.
Ewen McKenzie has talked some big talk since becoming the Wallabies coach. But he has to be given credit for the fact that the talk is being matched with performances on the field by the Wallabies. With Henry Speight in the team before the end of The Rugby Championships, injuries allowing, the Wallabies back line has potential to carve up any side, including perhaps the All Blacks.
The big story before the Test was what sort of impact Kurtley Beale would have at number 10. In my opinion, he did well. His pop-up inside passes kept the All Blacks defensive line from drifting early.
He kicked his penalties, except for a bad miss right on half-time. And I didn’t see any All Black runners going through him.
What Beale brings to the Wallabies is a certain unpredictability. He also has a rapport with Israel Folau. These two x-factor players, on a dry day, will pose all sorts of problems for the other sides in the the Rugby Championship.
As expected, Matt Toomua played first receiver from many of the phases of play. He has a kicking game that complements the running-passing game of Beale. So effectively, the Wallabies are playing the old New Zealand five-eighth system, rather than the traditional Australian fly half and inside centre system.
The big worry for the Wallabies coming out of the Test is that, at crucial times, the All Blacks scrum was superior to that of the Wallabies. This was especially apparent towards the end of the match when there were about 10 minutes to play.
One of those scrums ended up with Scott Higginbotham caught in a maul on the Wallabies try line. Peyper ruled ‘a mess’ and gave the scrum feed to the Wallabies. No wonder Aaron Smith gesticulated wildly in disgust. Then Peyper told the team there would be “no easy penalties” from the last remaining scrums before awarding the Wallabies an easy short-arm penalty for some technical infringement by the All Blacks.
‘Wallabies were lucky,” said Rod Kafer when Nic Phipps did not feed the scrum when he should have. “I think he wants to get out of here alive,” Nathan Sharpe reminded.
I have been careful here to quote what the Australian commentators said. It takes a lot for Australian commentators to suggest that the Wallabies are being let off the hook by the referee.
When the All Blacks led at half-time the statistic was announced that in 127 of their last Tests leading at half-time, they had won 123 of these matches. Now it is 123 out of 128 Tests. This provides a strong indication of just how well the Wallabies did in the second half to turn the Test around.
A problem for the All Blacks, obviously, was that they played about 18 minutes of the second half with 14 players.
I just found the decision of Jaco Peyper to yellow card two All Blacks just bout as bewildering as his scrum rulings. The two yellow card sendings off for ‘cynical’ play at the ruck have set a poor precedent. If players are going to be sent off for ‘cynical’ play, then most of the forwards will be in the sin bin. Certainly Michael Hooper and Richie McCaw would never finish a match.
The first penalty of the Test, for instance, when Scott Fardy deliberately fell across the All Blacks ruck and stopped a strong attack was as ‘cynical’ as that of the Wyatt Crockett and Beauden Barrett. Why wasn’t he given a yellow card?
The yellow card was introduced for repeated professional or cynical fouls in the scoring zone. Several infringements were needed before the yellow card sanction was to be used. Under Peyper the yellow card seems to have morphed into a first resort punishment for play deemed illegal anywhere on the field.
There are too many yellow cards issues, anyway. By bringing yellow cards into general play, Peyper threatened to destroy the integrity of the Test. It was noticeable that the All Blacks coaches were so nervous about his propensity to hand out yellow cards that that took Crockett off the field.
The point here is that two yellows become a red card. They did not want to risk permanently one player down.
I would expect the New Zealand Rugby Union and the All Blacks coaching staff will be having strong words with SANZAR about all this.
I noticed, though, that Steve Hansen, who is often accused of being ungracious after Tests, opened up with congratulating the Wallabies on a fine display. He praised his own team, too. There was no mention of the referee.
Certainly New Zealanders seem to be pretty upset by what happened. Melodie Robinson, a rugby commentator in NZ, tweeted not long after the Test, “the ref won that one.”
For me what Peyper did diminishes the value of the Wallabies performance. It allows the sort of comment made by Melanie Robinson to get some traction.
It is no easy thing, right now, to halt the All Blacks juggernaut. The Wallabies did this and more. They looked more likely to score tries than the All Blacks. In coaching jargon, there was ‘more to build on’ for the Wallabies than for the All Blacks out of this Test.
This is why I reckon the result was more a half-full glass than a half-empty glass result for the Wallabies. What they have done is restore the power of the home game for the home side. This will give them confidence, for instance, when playing the third Bledisloe Cup Test at Brisbane.
Unfortunately for the Wallabies they now have to win at Brisbane and at Eden Park next week to win back the Bledisloe Cup. The last time the Wallabies won at Eden Park was in 1984 when Alan Jones’ side won back the Bledisloe Cup there.
This was the first time the Wallabies had regained the Bledisloe Cup in New Zealand since 1949. So perhaps there is an omen in all of this.
The point about the Eden Park fortress where the All Blacks have every won Test since 1986 is that statistically this sort of record becomes very difficult to maintain. The same applied to the All Blacks winning streak of 17 Tests.
In modern sport, runs like these are almost unnatural. They are supernatural.
Teams do not usually maintain a dominance at a venue or with a particular team more than a year or so. For the All Blacks, their unbeaten run Tests in the last two years and the fact that since 2008 they have increased their winning Test percentage from 75 per cent to 86 per cent of all Tests played, is not sustainable.
A correction will come. The question is when.
I think we are probably seeing this now. In the last five Tests played by the All Blacks, they have won on time against Ireland and England, then won twice quite well against England and now have drawn a Test against the Wallabies.
Because they toughed out a draw in an away Test, and playing with 14 men for 20 minutes, I reckon the All Blacks would see this result as a half-full glass result, too.
They have gained two valuable away points in the Rugby Championship. And they have forced the Wallabies to win the next two Tests, one of them in New Zealand, to win back the Bledisloe Cup.
For their part, though. I reckon the Wallabies will believe they are up to the challenge of winning at Eden Park. They will bring their ball-in-hand game. It is a modern game that suits the talents of this Wallabies squad. It offers, in my opinion, the best chance of a victory.
Of course, the All Blacks are generally much better the second time around.
But the Wallabies have their best chance in years of defeating a hoodoo that has to be eclipsed sooner rather than later.
[roar_cat_gal]
FunnyGuy
Guest
Haha the major sports that you are good at because your the only ones that really play them. Maybe bar cricket
Phantom
Roar Rookie
Both the ABs yellow cards were errors. A poor day at the office for the whistler. Both of last nights were deserved. A better day for the whistler
Kane
Guest
As you mentioned you have control and your hands on it so you have possession your teammate has hands on it but no control so no possession. It's irrelevant anyway because the ref has since come out and said he got that wrong as the ball was out. Do you wanna guess why he said the ball was out? It has something to do with a certain halfback having his hands on it!
Kane
Guest
The ref has since come out and said that he got the first yellow wrong and that the ball was out.
wazza perth nz ex pat
Guest
Haha Yogi - Americas Cup - even when we choke we are the worlds best at it !!
Yogi
Guest
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the annual general meeting of the Fairfax Media Corporation. Before we get on to reviewing our financial performance for this year, I will ask Mr Scott-Young, our General Manager - Anti-kiwi Conspiracies, to come forward and provide us with a report on the progress he is making on his latest project, the undermining the all-blacks bid to win the 2015 RWC. This program has enjoyed great success over the years with such feats as the sinking of the rainbow warrier, the underarm ball, and the set up of the great kiwi choke of America's Cup 2012."
44bottles
Roar Guru
We'll be going for the three-peat draw this Bledisloe. At incresing scores. 12-12. 30-30,54-54 Should make for a cracking series and lose a fair amount of money from the punters.
Connor33
Guest
Gotcha - all good. Should be a great game this weekend with perfect conditions in Auckland. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if it was not another draw - with three tries apiece. Should make for some good discussion after the game on 'The Roar'...will no doubt talk then...
Oliver Matthews
Expert
It's an interesting question Wazza but as a former player, manager and coach you'll appreciate better than anyone that sometimes, no matter how well the preparation goes and how focused and determined your team seem to be in the build up, when the whistle blows things don't always come together as they should. Rhythm that was there disappears. Understanding that seemed almost Jedi like has gone AWOL. Crisp execution turns into calamity worthy of the 3 Stooges. Many players recount stories of how they would become more easily distracted by off field temptations as they got closer to the end of their career. So perhaps the ABs on Saturday were victims of too many old hands starting to question whether getting beat up for 80 mins in the driving rain was quite how they wanted to spend their evenings. But you know what - I reckon that just drives home my point even more. Not only were the Wallabies unable to win when they had the penalty count, numbers and possession firmly on their side, but they couldn't even beat an aging AB side that was not as motivated as it could have been. Time, as always, will tell. If we're looking back in a couple of months time at another trophy for the Kiwis (which I predict we will) then perhaps talk of a decline will go silent again for a while.
wazza perth nz ex pat
Guest
But why were the ABs below par - pre game it was all the talk of a game they were up for - The First Bledisloe etc but they weren't - Excluding the weather and how well the Oz team played - in the same weather conditions - why were the ABs 'below par' ?? As an aside - as an ex player, manager and coach - to me attitude is the primary factor if all others things are equal or thereabouts.....and that to me is coaching issue.
stillmatic1
Guest
apparently because Australian rugby fans have so much other interests outside of rugby they often have to resort to "wishful thinking" about their wallaby teams. they never get bent out of shape about anything that happens on the rugby field because they have many other sports to fawn over and us kiwis don't. we have been hearing the old line "wallabies have more upside than the allblacks" only for this to be shown to be folly time and time again. deep down they know the wallabies should have won that game but have spent the last few days trying to deflect attention away from the ins and outs of why they didn't win and focus on the abs (which is weird when you think about it). as oj said in another thread, wallaby fans on here have had no problem claiming that previous wins by the abs were due to the opposition receiving yellow cards, but now apparently the abs getting carded doesn't benefit them in their ability to win. very odd. oliver, your last couple of sentences sum this current team up. no matter how poorly they play, they just refuse to go down without a fight. this game, just like a few others of the last couple of years, have shown that this belief is simply more than luck being manifested, it is their collective willpower on show. it is something that the great wallaby side circa 2000 had also, and that this current wallaby team aspire to. will the current ab reign last longer than is needed to hold off the wallabies?
Upfromdown
Guest
Funny how the players and coaches on both sides were disappointed, thought it was generally a fair result and both thought they had their chances to win. I think we should take their example and look forward to the weekend. The Wallabies have to win to keep the BC alive (there is no Brisbane to fall back on if they lose), the kiwis want to get it over and done with and improve their performance and reassert themselves as the number 1 team with Boks looming. The fact it is Eden Park and the ABs have such a great record, and Australia like the rest of the world poor, just adds to it. We all know win lose or draw the ref will likely get hammered by both supporters next week.
Upfromdown
Guest
Well said. We also had David Kirk of all blacks fame as CEO of fairfax in Sydney for a few years as well. So there goes that theory
Oliver Matthews
Expert
There's a lot of talk about the strong performances of many of the Wallabies and how the All Blacks are looking like their sliding away from being the undisputed #1 to a team that can beat. But the point is that they weren't beaten. On a night when the Wallabies had a notable advantage in terms of penalty count (17 to 10), men on the pitch (25% of the entire match was played with the Aussies having a man advantage) and possession (65:35) they were not able to score a try or beat their opponents at home. Let's look at it another way - with almost half the amount of possession, and with only 14 men for 20 minutes, and with almost half the number of penalties - the All Blacks scored the same number of points as the Wallabies and never let them score a try. Were there good performances by the Wallabies? Yes there were. Did some players stand out in the Gold Jerseys as playing better than usual? Yes they did. Were many of the recently crowned Super 15s champions in the Wallabies side? Yes. And so many people have been commenting that this means that the Wallabies won the draw. That they should be more encouraged by the result and that they should roll into Auckland with one eye on the Bledisloe Cup. I just can't help but think that if I was the All Blacks I would be thinking - bring it on bro. The ABs played a well below par game, gave their opponents so many opportunities to score points and had to defend for almost two thirds of the game. And even then they didn't lose. So should we really look at the 12-12 draw in Sydney as a sign of decline within the Kiwis? Before you do consider this - 20th October 2012, the All Blacks were "held" to a draw by the Wallabies in Fortress Suncorp. No matter what they tried the All Blacks just could not win and the Wallabies performance was heralded as a great indication of what was to come. The All Blacks then went on to win something like 27 out of their next 28 games. Now that is a weird kinda decline! Of course the current "legends" of the ABs are aging and soon to retire, but their younger replacements seem to be coming along pretty nicely and any slow down in progress is not a decline - it's just a slow down while the ABs adjust. And during this adjustment they still seem to be impossible to beat. One of the reasons why teams who achieve long term success are able to put together long winning streaks that send opposition fans into depressive spirals of frustration and jealousy, is that they can squeak out results even when playing badly. Even when things don't click they find the strength, the courage, the grit not to be beaten. Winning games is one thing. Refusing to be beaten is another - and the All Blacks have shown that they can do both. The draw in Sydney just served to emphasize this even further.
44bottles
Roar Guru
Sorry. There's just been confusion between us. I had two points after you listed the Aussie halfbacks 1. Aus has had some great halfbacks, who would classify as Wallaby Legends 2. NZ has had good players in other positions, but halfback has never been one with a Legendary AB player in it. I didn't mean to turn this into an argument over player quality. It was a seperate statement to the bulk of my response agreeing with you that they were players who can still perform behind packs that aren't amazingly dominant. The point I was trying to make was, that some halfbacks can perform better than their pack, but having a good pack enhances their performance. I guess trying to put into context Smith not playing as well behind the Highlanders pack as he does for the all blacks.
Wal the Hooker
Guest
Zzzzzzzzz here we go again PK yawn. Yeah it's all coached whenever there's a boy in every NZ mother's womb FFS!
Wal the Hooker
Guest
+1 Rebel agreed, the first 25 the ABs were so dominant it was scary. Then as Jokerman said ping ping ping penalty galore! Why would a dominant side suddenly do that.... A case of the dominant team not getting the calls eh...
Wal the Hooker
Guest
A bit daring of Peyper not to card Hooper for lying all over the tackler in the red zone with the ABs hot on attack early second half then?? Get your blinkers off mate, Spiro has a point. A possible great contest ruined by a incompetent ref. Fair play to players for pushing the limits and testing out the ref, part of the game. To suggest the only one team in world rugby does it is pure sour grapes. Pfft
DC-NZ
Guest
I think Hansen and co had the wrong game plan, a rare mistake was made. Also, Richie, Kieran, Kaino had under-charged performances. Normal skills and service will return in Auckland. Happy with the draw I am.
Yogi
Guest
z henry I know better than to probe to see whether you are serious about this or just taking the puss out of us because I have seen on previous forums that you really believe in this media conspiracy. The australian owners of NZ media outlets are trying to destroy the all blacks. Wow. Soapit, PeterK, you guys have hit the nail on the head. As other teams close the gap the all blacks are getting more dependent on the professional foul to stop opposition as they enter attacking territory and referees are figuring it out. I don't think the wallabies were robbed - a draw was a fair result - but the wallabies and boks will be smelling blood.