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The relief on Michael Cheika’s face was palpable after the Wallabies’ 23-17 win over the Springboks at Suncorp last night.
It was the Wallabies first success after six successive losses since the Rugby World Cup final over ten months ago.
Make no mistake, it was far from a perfect performance, but the commitment was there, with pride restored in the gold jersey.
That’s a damn good start.
The 80 minutes were best described in the Wallabies’ favour in a two-tries apiece game.
The Boks’ two five-pointers were gift-wrapped by the Wallabies, the first from a Wallaby turnover inside two minutes and the second an Adriaan Strauss intercept from a Bernard Foley pass.
In contrast, the Wallabies earned both their tries with Will Genia’s vision finding behemoth lock Adam Coleman swanning on the wing with a lob pass, and Foley finished off a sustained 18-phase Wallaby attack late in the game.
But the Wallabies let six tries go begging, and that’s not acceptable.
Especially centre Samu Kerevi who made a stunning burst down the left touchline, carrying the ball under his right arm.
Fundamentally wrong as any 10-year-old will tell you.
Springbok fullback Johan Goosen cleaned up Kerevi in-goal, but if the Wallaby had the ball tucked under his left arm, the try was unstoppable,
On the credit side both the Wallaby lineout and scrum were vast improvements.
The Wallabies won 13 of their 14 feeds, the one lost was lack of ball control that fell into welcome Springbok hands.
Importantly, the more experienced Wallabies who were under the pump – skipper Stephen Moore, prop Sekope Kepu, flanker Dean Mumm, and Foley all had their best games of the year.
Halfback Will Genia had a lot to do with that, quickly and accurately clearing possession and setting his backline moving who were positive and keen to move forward.
But keeping bench half Nick Phipps out of the game altogether made all the difference.
Genia was my man of the match, and the fact Kane Douglas and Coleman were the first lock combination in seven games to enjoy successive starts.
On the debit side, classy fullback Israel Folau is shamefully under-used, his talent wasted.
I’d like to see him trailing Quade Cooper as David Campese did with mercurial Mark Ella whose half-breaks in the 1980s often sent Campese flying through a crack in the defence, and he was gone.
With Folau and Cooper, the result could be the same to win many internationals.
Next up the Pumas in Perth on Saturday which could well prove tougher than the Boks.
But with the passengers now playing like internationals again, the Wallabies should, and must, win.