Wallabies beat Wales 33-28 in Cardiff

I hope he improves Jez. I think he has a lot of issues, and despite my defending him on some points, I agree his scrummaging is something he really has to work on.

Mike, I gave up re-watching as I was doing it without the benefit of fast forward and had already dedicated over an hour to the task to get as far as I did. I will say I had missed the timing of Jenkins and Baldwin's injections and I may have undersold their impact while overstating Skelton's. I've also noticed the Tah scrum being weaker with him compared to the Douglas/Potgeiter pairing and am potenially prejudicial. I did react to Martin's commentary that the Aussie scrum would improve when he came on for Carter as I think Carter and Alexander at the Brumbies were more effective than Skelton and Kepu at the Tahs. Despite me believing Kepu is a superior TH. Will, certainly isn't Robinson Crusoe when it comes to Australian scrum woes but I did think that when the pressure came on he was noticeably higher than his locking partners and his head was visible which is always a worry with a lock. I didn't pick up live but did notice when watching the replay/s that McCalman was high as well. Anyway - I don't think our thoughts are as far apart as our comments may suggest. We both see a player with great potential who we both hopes continues to improve.

Coincidently that direction he was pushing was also towards the try line but we'll just ignore that for arguments sake.

Also, on the second scrum, we popped the entire Welsh front row, and they won the penalty?? Anyway...

Also true. When are we going to learn to treasure possession in the final few minutes? A final opportunity to Wales was simply gifted.

Yep. I'm hoping we will see some comment on this from Scott, but it's seems obvious with the flanker at 90 to the scrum pushing in the direction that the scrum wheeled. Thought the Welsh had problems with th ref adjudication at the breakdown. Doesn't make the ref wrong though.

and I'm fairly sure that was clear to the majority of readers.

What you mean like those members of the Wallaby squad that watched from the stands ?

Hey JB, Well as we tend to pick test players from the super rugby squads and there isn't a state with more than one super rugby squad then the alternative would have to be from a different state to the primary. Sorry but that's klnda a dumb question.

I didn't expect the wallabies to win this game given how close the home series was and given how many troops we are down. Beating these guys at Cardiff is significant. I hope people give Cheika the time required, McKenzie was given over a year of mediocre results, because he was building something, If things went differently I think McKenzie wouyld have brought a really strong squad to next years world cup.

who is the alternative at ten RO someone not from NSW?

David Lord is hyper-critical of Quade - sure, as he is of many players, and many of us have disagreed with him on many issues. Its a bit rich to claim "the Roar would be in meltdown" - that would be because there are as many people strongly disagreeing with David as there are agreeing with him. Its not an issue peculiar to Quade. The fact is that other people have criticised Quade before, and for far greater clangers than anything Foley did on Saturday - by bringing up his past (which you chose to do do) you aren't helping Quade's cause.

Probably the poorest case of comprehension I've ever seen on here...

Why did you use an old photo as a leadin?

Its Duane Vermeulen, not Dwayne. I believe he was christened Daniel so I don't know where Duane comes from. Its not any Afrikaans that I can think of.

Handles, FWIW, the attitude of the Welsh commentators to which I referred was like this quote from them at the 57th minute: “Foley, he does everything very very well, controls the game, sets his backs going, makes the right decision, he’s had a very good game”". That's was all I was saying.

But hooper is too small

I hope you are correct. Two or three years ago Wales would have beaten this Australian side.

Wallabies would not have beaten England yesterday the way Poms scared NZ. Even Wales looked dangerous on more occasions than in the past NH teams certainly look better & don't appear as vulnerable as before. Be happy if W's can beat England - rest don't mean much. With apologies to Ireland & congrats for their victory over SA. S T

“Mike, your posts prompted me to go and re-watch the match and make notes on the scrums up until Skelton took the pitch.” Cool, thanks. Interestingly so did I today, and I also made notes on the scrums after he took the pitch. The results are interesting. Let me say first of all that I don’t think Skelton is a particularly good test lock for scrummaging or general play, although he is young and that may change. But what concerns me is that you and others are passing out blame, and not blaming other players, in a way that doesn’t fit what happened. Our problems in the Wallaby scrum go much further than Skelton (or even Alexander for that matter) and if we delude ourselves about this, we will not improve. I generally agree with your analysis of the first 50 minutes, with the following caveats: “2mins – Wales feed, won by Wales but the Aussie scrum was pushing them back.” Not by much. Perhaps half a metre, and for one or two seconds, and Wales had no trouble getting the ball out. Also a minor nitpick – this was in the 7th minute. “38mins – Wales feed, scrum collapsed before the ball was fed with Kepu penalised as his shoulders were below his hips on the Set.” Another nit-pick – I could only hear Joubert telling Kepu that he was the one who collapsed the scrum, not commenting on the reason. And I couldn’t see enough to draw a conclusion about his hip position (I was watching the BBC feed). “50mins – Aussie feed, Aussie win but had collapsed under driving pressure from Wales. Joubert allowed benefit of the doubt but spoke to the front row before the next scrum.” I think its pretty evident that what saved us was getting the ball out at about the same time we went down. Importantly, what Joubert said to our front row afterwards was, “Boys I won’t let it go if it collapses every time. You’ve had your chance”. One of our players said, “thank you Sir”. Jez, I don’t see how you can call these scrums (i.e. up to 50 minute mark) “fairly even”. On the one hand, at no point did we look like dominating Wales, not even close – once we pushed them back about half a metre. Whereas we justly copped a penalty at the 38 minute mark, and we were very fortunate not to cop one at the 50 minute mark. After Skelton came on, as you rightly point out the next two scrums went well for us (51 and 53 minutes). In one we pushed them back, and in the other we got a penalty against their loosehead for hingeing. That is hardly consistent with a bad performance by Skelton, who is on the same side. Then as you also point out, we were pushed back in the scrum at the 59th minute, and it was on Kepu’s and Skelton’s side. But this was straight after they had brought on a fresh loosehead prop and a fresh hooker – and many consider the new loosehead to be a better scrummager than the starter. But in any case, how is this any worse a performance than what happened in earlier scrums at 38th minute and 50th minute? And therefore how does it prove Skelton to be so bad? Then you write: “From there we are on the back foot and go rapidly downhill.” I am surprised you wrote that, given the context. You basically stopped analysing, and on points that were problematic for your argument about Skelton. So I will give you my analysis and you can pick holes in it if you like: Our remaining scrums were five in a row at the 60-65 minute mark, and one at the 67 mark. Re the five in a row: In the first, our front row goes straight down and you can hear Joubert blaming Slipper for this (this is Simmons’ side, not Skelton’s). In the second, the scrum wheels (on Kepu and Skelton’s side) and we are penalised; however the Welsh commentators disagree with Joubert on this – they point out that we did not pull the scrum, so wheeling should not have been a penalty, and two Welsh front-rowers popped up while all our pack were still pushing in the scrum. It should have been a penalty to Australia. Nevertheless, the penalty went to Wales, so be it. The third scrum was peculiar – the ball almost came out the other tunnel and Warburton claimed it was assisted by an Australian hand (which would have to be a yellow card). Joubert just called a penalty to Wales and re-set it. The fourth scrum held for quite a while, then Kepu’s side went down suddenly. Fifth scrum they pushed us straight back a little and Joubert legitimately called penalty try. I do not see how you can single out Skelton in all of that. Finally, there is the scrum on the 67th minute – the front rows immediately collapsed, but Joubert blamed no-one, moved it, and reset it. The second scrum held – Wales pushed and got nowhere, so they took the pill out the back and spin it wide. Note: this is a scrum with Alexander at tighthead and Skelton behind him, and it was just as good as our scrums early in the first half. I should also add that I watched Skelton at this and other times – on the call “set” his hips go as low as Simmons next to him, if not lower. Skelton is not IMO a first choice lock, but I don’t think it is fair to blame him for problems in Australian scrummaging which go much further than one or two people.