The power of 13 for the Wallabies. Are those seven minutes between the 56th and 63rd minutes of a bruising Australia versus Wales Pool of Death decider the minutes of destiny for the 13-man Wallabies?

In that period, although they were under intense pressure from a fired-up Wales, with an equally passionate crowd singing in a way that made Twickenham resemble (in sound, at least) the old Cardiff Arms Park, the Wallabies did not concede a point.

This was remarkable defence by, in the words of Paul Cully in The Sydney Morning Herald, the Wallabies’ “unbreakable gold wall”.

In virtually every Rugby World Cup tournament there is a time in a crucial match, often before the final, when a side does something remarkable, against the odds, that provides the belief in every player that they are the team of destiny for that year.

Think about Michael Lynagh’s try against Ireland in the quarter-final at Dublin with minutes to go after the home side had scored a runaway try to take the lead. Or think about Stephen Larkham’s drop goal against the Springboks at Twickenham in the 1999 Rugby World Cup in extra-time to give the Wallabies passage into the final against France.

So roll the tape on what could possibly be the 2015 Wallabies’ time of destiny.

It is the 56th minute of a gruelling, attritional match. The score is Australia 12-6 Wales. Wales are applying intense pressure against a Wallabies side that is pinned down in their 22.

Penalty to Wales. Halfback Gareth Davies (a splendid and historic Welsh rugby name) takes a quick tap. He is tackled immediately by Will Genia. Yellow card! The Wallabies are down to 14 players.

Rather than kick for goal, the Wales captain Sam Warburton, who was curiously off the ball throughout the match (too tired?), opted for a five-metre lineout drive. The drive is stopped when the Wallabies captain, Stephen Moore, cynically interferes with its forward progress.

Another penalty. And again, Warburton calls for a five-metre driving maul.

There is a massive surge by Wales towards the Wallabies’ line. Toby Faletau crashes across the line, but as he is about to ground the ball he is smashed by Kane Douglas and David Pocock. The TMO video shows Faletau losing control of the ball over the try-line as he tries to make the plant.

It is now 59 minutes into the match and Wales goes for a third five-metre lineout, after turning down yet another shot at goal.

A Wales surge towards the try-line is stopped again. But the South African referee Craig Joubert (who was superb in his decision-making throughout the match) calls out Dean Mumm for playing a Wales jumper in the air. Yellow card.

The Wallabies are down to 13 players for seven minutes.

Wales call for a scrum. They go through a series of pick-and-goes. Then the ball goes wide and George North is held up over the line by Ben McCalman.

Over the roaring, chanting and singing of the crowd, you can hear Warburton yell out to his players as they set themselves for a scrum: “Everything you’ve got. Big scrum.”

The Wallabies have brought on both their replacement props, James Slipper and Greg Holmes. They contrive to collapse two successive scrums.

Joubert has a chat with Moore: “Stephen. it can’t be a coincidence these players come on (he nods in the direction of the Wallabies props) and it goes down. We need stability!”

Moore looks across to the replacement Wales prop Tomas Francis: “What about that guy!”

“Take measures to get it better,” Joubert tells Moore.

The Wallabies are facing the prospect of 12 men on the field, against 15, if they stuff up another scrum.

St Mario Ledesma help us!

The scrum holds, just. The prayers are answered. Douglas and Moore put on a huge tackle and stop a Welsh drive that has gone over the Wallabies’ line in a mass of bodies, a red and gold all-sorts concoction of colours.

It is 65 minutes into the game. Still no points conceded by the Wallabies with only 13 players on the field.

There is a mad scramble of players, an almost turnover and yet another penalty to Wales.

Warburton makes the fateful decision to give away the certainty of three points from a penalty to chase the seven points for a converted try, and a Wales lead.

St Nathan Grey help us!

So the Wallabies confront yet another five-metre lineout drive. Wales pass the ball wide. Adam Ashley-Cooper comes out of the defensive line like an Exocet missile homing in on a target. He smashes the Wales runner to the ground, in a ball-and-all smothering tackle.

The Wallabies pour into the ruck like molten gold into a red mould. Penalty! To the Wallabies!

It is 69 minutes into the game. No points conceded. The Wallabies can bring their 14th man on to the field. Numerous changes are made. Moore and Pocock, who has played for some time with a sore calf muscle, are replaced.

Refreshed in numbers and players, and from that surge of confidence that comes when disaster is averted through brilliant, brave play, the Wallabies surge into an attack. Israel Folau defies an aching ankle to make a searing break.

Wales are penalised for winger Alex Cuthbert slapping away a long cut-out pass that might have created a Wallabies overlap. Bernard Foley, who kicks every shot at goal until his last (unneeded) attempt, converts the penalty.

It is 72 minutes into the game. Wallabies 15-6 Wales. Game over.

In the history of the Golden Wallabies these desperate, heroic minutes will be remembered and treasured as one of their greatest displays of true guts.

It surpasses the heroics of the quarter-final in the 2011 Rugby World Cup against the Springboks because in that historic match the Wallabies had eight forwards against eight. And the Springboks lost their fetcher Heinrich Brussow. This allowed Pocock to have a field day at the rucks.

Against Wales, the Wallabies backrow of Pocock, Scott Fardy and Ben McCalman (Sean McMahon was replaced after Pocock went down injured, how did this happen?) had to stop attacks out wide, contest five-metre lineouts, scrums (with six forwards) and contest the rucks and mauls. Talk about beating the odds.

Michael Cheika after the match summed up the quality of this defence: “I was very proud because that’s a very difficult situation (13 men) in the context of the game.”

The Wallabies were lucky that Wales played the situation poorly. Warburton should have kicked the first penalty. Then the Wallabies would have had to kick-off and try and defend about three-quarters of the field, rather than a quarter of it.

The point here is that the easiest (still difficult, of course) place to defend with 13 against 15 is inside the 22. Why? Because the 13 players can fill up the space inside their 22 more easily than they can, say, from their opponent’s 10-metre line. And because 14 of the opposition are also inside the 22 (everyone except the fullback), there are 27 players in a small, crowded space.

These practicalities were always recognised by Randwick in the heyday of The Galloping Greens. They insisted that the easiest place to run in tries was from just outside their 22, when the opposition was forced to scatter its defenders across three-quarters of the paddock.

Wales looked to me to be tired, mentally and physically. I don’t think that they will go much further in the tournament than the quarter-final stage they have achieved. Wales play a rampant Springboks side which I think could really demolish what has become a tired side weakened with injuries to its best players.

Warren Gatland is obviously a smart coach. But his side did not play particularly smart or efficient rugby against the Wallabies.

Two huge centres were selected, Jamie Roberts and North. These selections suggested that Gatland was going to get Wales to play as the British and Irish Lions did in the third Test of the 2013 series against the Wallabies.

Brian O’Driscoll was dropped by Gatland and replaced by Jonathan Davies who played outside centre to Roberts. The Lions monstered the Wallabies with Roberts and Davies smashing their way through the middle of the field. But against the Wallabies at Twickenham, the big Wales centres hardly touched the ball throughout the match.

Early on in the match, when Wales had the Wallabies under the cosh, Dan Biggar preferred to take on the defence himself rather than slip a pass to the rampaging Roberts.

The Wales outside back hardly got a touch. They kicked rather than run the ball back to the Wallabies.

Yet before the match, Gatland promised that with Wales already guaranteed a place in the finals they would “take the shackles off” with their play.

As Rod Kafer noted before the match, that comment really meant that they were going to kick the plastic off the ball. And he was right.

Wales, also, were poor in the scrums, conceding a crucial scrum penalty against a seven-man Wallabies pack. This weakness has been there for Wales throughout the tournament, with Fiji, for instance, forcing scrum penalties against them.

It was noticeable, too, that the Wallabies really fancied themselves at scrum time against Wales. Right at the beginning of the game, when the Wallabies forced a short-arm penalty near their 22, they opted for a scrum rather than belting the ball down field.

That scrumming bravado almost back-fired on the Wallabies. The ball squirted out, there was a Wales pick-up and a threatening attack was only just repulsed.

Where the Wallabies showed their class was in their attention to detail, something that was lacking in the play of Wales.

McMahon, for instance, took the first kick-off. He was incredibly responsible in the calculated, careful manner he ensured that he wouldn’t be turned over when he took the first tackle of the match.

After half-time, also, the Wallabies kicked deep and Drew Mitchell, who had a very strong game, chased really hard to unsettle the Wales catcher. Biggar cleared the ball after a hotly contested ruck but only to just outside the Wales 22.

And Foley kicked all five of his first five shots at goal. He missed his last shot, which was possibly his easiest, when it was obvious he could hardly lift his legs, let alone belt his foot through the ball.

Biggar, on the other hand, missed a relatively easy penalty right on half-time which would have closed the score from Wallabies 12-6 Wales, to 12-9.

The Wallabies now are the only side that has won all its Rugby World Cup matches in the United Kingdom, being unbeaten in 1991 and 1999.

That 1999 side conceded only one try in the entire tournament and I think Cheika’s Wallabies resemble them more than the 1991 side which contained the genius of David Campese, the most brilliant open-field runner in the history of the game.

Like the 1999 side, Cheika’s Wallabies have few weaknesses. Their scrum is as good as any in the tournament: the lineout, when Rob Simmons is playing, is excellent; they have the best loose forward trio in world rugby; and the backs are solid rather than brilliant. The exception to the backs is Folau, who is capable of sensational running when the opportunity presents itself, and sometimes when it doesn’t.

Another link with the 1991 and 1999 Wallabies and Cheika’s Wallabies is that they are not imposters, show ponies or big headed big noters. They have adopted many of the mantras and practices of the current All Blacks. They are big on respecting their opponents and have even taken to cleaning out their dressing room, for instance.

Another All Blacks mantra they seem to have adopted, too, is ‘better people make better players’. Their behaviour has been exemplary, on and off the field. This has applied to Cheika himself.

So it was somewhat ironical that the England coaches, Owen Farrell and Graham Rowntree, have been disciplined by the Rugby World Cup authorities for talking (read: remonstrating) to the French referee Romain Poite at half-time of the Australia versus England match.

This is behaviour that has in the past, in Europe and Australia, gotten Cheika (rightly so) into trouble. But wearing his thick-rimmed glasses to give himself a professorial look, Cheika has clearly worked on his own anger problems. His post-match commentaries are a model of good sense and professionalism.

No such professionalism from England, in this tournament and in previous tournaments. The disciplining of Farrell and Rowntree represents the third time in Rugby World Cup tournaments that England officials have committed gross breaches of the playing protocols. Talk about arrogance.

Cheika’s Wallabies have earned the support of all Australians, no matter what code they support. I was astonished and sorry to read Steve Mascord’s recent article on The Roar explaining why he was hoping that the Wallabies would lose to Wales.

I worked with Mascord on the SMH. He is a self-acknowledged rugby league tragic. But his argument about rugby being a rah rah, class-obsessed game, in comparison to league, is total nonsense. It is carrying the 100-year hatred of obsessed league tragics against rugby to primitive and nasty lengths.

There was a time when the Wallabies were selected from the private schools (including Catholic schools) of Brisbane and Sydney. But that time has gone. The Wallabies are far more diverse in background than, say, the Kangaroos.

You could hardly get someone more mulitcutural than Cheika himself, a self-made and successful businessman, in the rag trade, who speaks several languages.

Go through the Wallabies list and tell me that this is not a team that is representative of the great diversity of Australian life, a team that all Australians should be proud of supporting.

I wonder, too, what the reaction would be from league tragics like Mascord if rugby writers started writing that they hoped the Kangaroos would lose to, say, the Kiwis or England, and as a consequence diminished the interest in the league code.

You will never get a rugby person writing something as subversive as that.

I thought some of the Twitter commentary was spot on:

Live footage of the @Wallabies defensive line from Twickenham… #AUSvWAL pic.twitter.com/dIUGGeIDM1

— Jack Quigley (@Jack_Quigley) October 10, 2015

Not one try was scored, but that was one hell of a match! #StrongerAsOne

— Wallabies (@Wallabies) October 10, 2015

One final comment on the Wallabies. Because of the strength of the teams playing in the Pool of Death, the Wallabies have had to play three knock-out matches before the knock-out part of the tournament has even begun.

There are two ways of looking at this. One, the Wallabies are the only unbeaten side going into the finals that has had to play as if their Rugby World Cup hopes depended on the results in three of their matches. They have an advantage in being toughened up, mentally and physically, for their first real knock-out match against Scotland.

The Wallabies will beat Scotland and the advantage of being in the easier half of the finals will come through. They could face a semi-final from either France, Ireland, or Argentina, depending on results.

Wales face the Springboks in their quarter-final and then, if they win that match (doubtful) they could have to play the All Blacks in the semi-finals.

The obverse part of all this is that the three tough matches the Wallabies have played already are beginning to take a toll on their players, as they have on Wales. Folau has an injured ankle, Pocock has a calf injury, Rob Horne is out with a damaged shoulder, Matt Giteau has taken a few beatings and other players seem to be like warriors coming out of a bloody battle.

Time will tell whether the hard road the Wallabies have had to take to make the finals has been a better preparation to reach the goal of winning the Webb Ellis trophy than the easier route the All Blacks have been required to take.

But for now, what is sure is that the Wallabies have created the standout attacking performance of the 2015 Rugby World Cup against England and the standout defensive performance against Wales.

They have won all 12 of their World Cup matches in the UK. A team can’t do better than this.

Now for Scotland…