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Rookie Wallabies winger Andrew Kellaway will leave Auckland with three Bledisloe Cup tries and a stark lesson in when to keep your mouth shut.
There is no doubt Kellaway was hard done by in the reaction to his comments on Sydney radio after the first Bledisloe Cup match.
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Kellaway said: “You roll out to one of those places like Eden Park – it’s mercurial in its atmosphere and such a tough place to play even at Super Rugby level. We get to do it two weeks in a row.
“We’ve probably put out an unpolished performance on the weekend and you can almost look at it like a dress rehearsal. Now we’re ready to roll.
(Photo by Getty Images)
“I think the cobwebs are out, so to speak. A couple of those boys have played the All Blacks for the first time [now], myself included. Maybe the aura has worn off a little bit.”
Kellaway, and his coach Dave Rennie have argued that the headlines that followed the interview were blown out of context. They’re both right – but using the word ‘aura’ was always going to be seized upon, showed staggering naivety, and you assume Rennie has had a few stern words with his young player on the facts of life in the big time.
On Saturday, Kellaway scored two tries in the Wallabies’ devastating record 57-22 loss, having got one a week earlier, but former All Blacks player Sonny Bill Williams said the hosts would have likely been motivated by the Australians’ interview.
“There’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded All Blacks team and we hear all that noise,” Williams said on Stan Sport.
“There are newspaper clippings that have been posted on the team wall in the inner sanctum for motivation.
“That type of talk really plays its role and plays into the hands of the hungry All Blacks team.”
Rennie was listening in to Williams’ comments and was asked about them, of course, by Stan host Nick McArdle. His frustration was obvious, but he would have known it was coming.
“We never said that [the All Blacks had lost their aura],” said Rennie. “Kells was asked his opinion of playing the All Blacks first up. He was more implying that last week he was heading into the unknown and this week he’s experienced the All Blacks at Eden Park and he was up for the challenge.
“You get a reporter that cuts a few words out of a five minute interview and makes a big headline out of it.
“We certainly respect the All Blacks and we’re not going to give them ammunition during the week so it was disappointing.”
Kellaway’s inadvertent offering of ammunition wasn’t the only fatal mistakle the Wallabies made. They also shot themselves in the foot with ill disciplined play.
“We did a lot of good things with the ball in hand but you’ve got to treasure it,” said Rennie. “We turned it over. I thought we made some really poor defensive decisions, guys coming out of the system and getting exposed down the short side.
“The All Blacks are too good to give them that sort of space. We went pretty well first half, really physical and created opportunities but you can’t gift All Blacks intercepts and so on. A really disappointing night.
“It was a series of things, we had a five metre lineout they’re down one it’s 21-15 and we score from there we’ve got our nose in front. I didn’t think we managed that very well. Think they got more impact off the bench, finished over the top of us.
“We talked a lot about treasuring the ball. We knew we had to win collisions. We knew we had to be really accurate and find space in behind them and we missed some genuine opportunities and there and put ourselves under pressure, we have to be better.”
Matt To’omua, brought in as inside centre to add experince to the backline, threw one of the passes that the All Blacks ran in for a try.
e said “it’s embarrasing to be on the end of that scoreline,” before he was on the end of some withering punditry from Alanna Ferguson on Stan Sport.
“He was pretty underwhelming tonight,” said Ferguson.
“I was looking for his experience on the edge, the way he came off the bench in last week’s game was really impressive he came on and was running the footy, he straightened up the attack and he asked questions of the defence.
“I didn’t see much of that at all from him tonight.
“Some of his decisions were quite inexperienced – particularly the cut out pass.
“He threw a few of those wild passes in Super Rugby that played out the exact same way. The fact he’s doing it in a Test match and he’s there for his experience and to add as another ball player on the edge, I’m not too impressed with his game tonight.
“We know he can play good footy – we just didn’t see it.”