- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
It’s 20 years since Stirling Mortlock’s treasured World Cup moment yet it still hits the senses like fresh-cut grass to many of us.
For The Roar followers of a certain age, it was the gold pass to party time with the euphoric semi-final upset for the ages over the All Blacks in 2003.
The Roar is counting down the Wallabies’ Greatest World Cup XV of all time from No. 15-1 with thanks to thousands of votes from our readers
For younger fans who weren’t even born on November 15, 2003, it’s that oft-replayed vision of a Wallaby dude in curious black gloves haring away to score an intercept try.
He is still known as the “Interceptor” when random types want to shake his hand in rugby settings.
Whichever way you remember it, it was the clutch event in an almost perfect 22-10 victory over the Kiwis at Stadium Australia in front of more than 82,000 screaming fans.
Mortlock’s moment is what his selection in The Roar’s Greatest Wallabies RWC XV has been all about.
Selections and votes have been made specific to “World Cup impact”. There have been few greater single moments in the Wallabies’ history at the tournament.
Flip it the other way. Would Mortlock have won this No.13 spot over World Cup-winners Jason Little (1991) and Daniel Herbert (1999) without it?
It is an interesting question because Herbert played like the best outside centre in the world in 1999 and the youthful Tim Horan-Little centre pairing was a trump for the 1991 Wallabies.
The Mortlock try inside the opening 10 minutes was the only try scored by the Wallabies that night in 2003 to go with Elton Flatley’s superb goalkicking.
Stirling Mortlock runs to score Australia’s first try in the 2003 semi (Photo by Manuel Blondeau/Photo & Co./Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
The try was the emblem of a smart, perfectly executed game plan by the players and one of the coaching peaks for Eddie Jones.
Anyone in the stands sensed something big in the opening minutes. The Wallabies’ defence was fierce and suffocating.
The Wallabies actually won the toss and elected to receive the kick-off. There was no lame kick to touch as a settler. The Wallabies held the ball, ran and recycled it with composure from their own 22 to ultimately earn a penalty.
The Wallabies targeted key All Blacks which meant pressuring the lineout throws of hooker Keven Mealamu, going hard at halfback Justin Marshall (who exited early with a rib knock from a George Smith tackle) and putting into action what they had learnt about flyhalf Carlos Spencer.
Under Eddie Jones, the Wallabies had studied Spencer’s pet plays. They knew he liked a cutout pass.
He didn’t adapt to the heat being applied by the Wallabies defence and Mortlock seized on a floating, spiraling double-cut out pass with the All Blacks trying to go on attack 20m out.
It was a 14-point moment. Mortlock swooped on the pass perfectly and dashed 80m to score to set up a 13-0 lead.
Mortlock’s own memories of the moment are still vivid. “It was so noisy inside the stadium. For the only time in my whole career, I just screamed before I got to the tryline. I looked around on about the 22 as I was running and there was no Doug Howlett or Joe Rokocoko close behind,” Mortlock recalled.
“I just screamed this ‘woo-hah’ but the place was so loud no one would have been the wiser.”
Mortlock gave rich credit to Jones because the coach and players had bounced back from a disastrous 50-21 crash to the same All Blacks outfit just months before.
“We worked really hard on a game plan for months and implemented it almost perfectly. We felt in control pretty much the entire time in that semi-final,” Mortlock said.
It was a credit to Mortlock’s own powers of recovery that he was there at all after being forced into a shoulder reconstruction during the Super Rugby season just months earlier.
Fewer people remember that Mortlock also scored the game-turning try in the 33-16 quarter-final win over Scotland in Brisbane in 2003.
The scores were locked 9-all just after half-time when Mortlock scooted clear from halfway after flanker Phil Waugh had thieved a turnover standing in the middle of a ruck. Mortlock played at a second World Cup in France in 2007 when he led the squad as captain.
Stirling Mortlock is your choice of No.13 for The Roar’s Greatest Wallabies Rugby World Cup XV, powered by ASICS, the Official Performance Apparel and Footwear supplier for the Wallabies. Mortlock won with 54.1% of the vote, followed by Jason Little and Daniel Herbert. Check back tomorrow to find out who was selected at No.12.
The Roar’s Greatest Wallabies Rugby World Cup XV