Bledisloe Two was punk rock rugby

The opening half onslaught, barrage and blitz from New Zealand in the 2015 World Cup final could best be described as heavy metal rugby, a term paraphrased from football to describe Jurgen Klopp’s insanely all-action Borussia Dortmund team.

It was a hurricane that was the complete manifest of the game being played at the next level, with there being a ridiculous period in the first half when New Zealand forced four turnovers in 90 seconds.

The Bledisloe Cup test this past Saturday in Dunedin was less heavy metal gig, more ramshackle punk rock down the pub, with all the mistakes, dodgy grasp of the basics and relentless ploughing through until a victory at the end reminiscent of The Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Saints barely holding their songs together with beer and sticky tape.

Like these bands’ live shows, the end result was compelling and exciting and made everyone feel a bit sweaty and in need of a shower afterwards.

The lighting problem which delayed kick-off for 15 minutes even built the suspense, much like a band delaying the start of a gig to allow the crowd to swell and more booze to be consumed, and the choice of whether to head back to the dressing room or stay warming up on the field had all sorts of potential for pre-game soft power mind games, a la Ireland versus England in 2003 or Wales versus England in 2015.

All of that was forgotten 26 seconds in when Israel Folau swooped for his intercept try, a classic ‘don’t bore us, get to the chorus’ moment, and the entire first half played out like no-one could be arsed with the non-try scoring aspects of rugby, which to be honest suited me fine!

Unlike many Wallabies fans, I was not happy when Kurtley Beale went over in the 76th minute to give us the lead, as there was only one inevitable outcome from there: the All Blacks scoring again. The sick feeling in my stomach was compounded two minutes later as Beauden Barrett crossed, and it substantiated my belief that the only good time to score your final points against the All Blacks is the 80th minute onwards, best summed up by the most scarring test loss I have ever seen a country endure: Ireland’s absolute heartbreaker against New Zealand at the Aviva Stadium in 2013.

I was worried that three years of living in the UK had softened my love of how rugby is played in Australia and New Zealand – that the exposure to sniffy comments about us playing basketball or touch instead of ‘proper’ mud-and-fat-blokes rugby had rubbed off on me. I even found myself clapping and looking forward to scrums and penalty kicks, something unimaginable to me even five years ago.

Never mind that bollocks, as Saturday blew all of that out of the water and reminded me why ‘running rugby’ is the catch-call we have worshipped for years, and the visceral reaction to the game on all sides was a message: up with this sort of thing.