Really refreshing to read an article that is not just a promo for one team. I guess it takes someone who has played at the very top to recognise that there will be two sides out there, and they both could win.

“So far we’ve swept aside all comers”. I think the Scots might query this over the top statement. Even the Welsh would have a quibble, given that the Wallabies couldn’t score a try against them. A dose of reality is probably needed here. In matches between the top three teams, the Wallabies just scraped home in Brisbane against the Boks; just beat a poorly focused ABs in Sydney; and got massacred in Auckland. In the RWC they have played mediocre teams but played well against England. Then they almost threw it all away against Scotland.

Not sure about the we, we, we throughout the article. Is this a Wallaby cheerleaders’ site or one where objective views are put forward. The Wallabies could win, if the ABs are unfocused as they have been on occasions this year. But if the ABs turn up to play as they did at Eden Park there should be only one winner, and given the import of the match and the last hurrahs for some of rugby’s greatest greats, I expect this will be the result. But you never know till the thin Welshman sings (on his final whistle).

All the factors that the Boks have going for them have been there before – their mean forward pack, their no compromise defence, their rolling maul – but even at Ellis Park it is generally not enough. I always fear the Boks, but the performance of the ABs at Cardiff tells me that they are ready for the Bok challenge, and when the ABs are switched on it’s almost impossible to beat them. I just hope it is a classic, like several of the last few years.

Dave, to deal with several of your points in your two messages. I am not sure that the assistant referee had a good view of the incident, and I am not sure if he had any input. My suggestion is only that it was his job to be looking closely at what happened as it was the referee’s, and it is stretching credibility to think that neither of them saw Phipps put his arm up to grab the ball as it bounced off his chest. How else did it get from the first Scot to the second?

Sportsmanship in one team should not be dependent on the same from the other side. You can be a sportsman however the other side reacts.

I’m not too interested in the technical definition of karma. In normal speak it is taken to mean that you get what you give, and balance is achieved in the long run.

You miss my point about the difference with a mistake early in the game and with 2 minutes to go. If Joubert had given the Wallabies an unjustified penalty in the 2nd minute which Foley converted, the Scots would have had 78 minutes to rectify this and would have only themselves to blame if they didn’t. When this happens in the 78th minute their options are considerably less. Nobody aims to be points ahead during the game – that’s irrelevant. The sole focus is on being points ahead at the end of the game.

Wallaby supporters who believe they deserved to win because they scored 5 tries to three, and Foley kicked a dubious penalty at the end are fooling themselves. They struggled to defeat a team that has performed in a mediocre fashion for years; they gave them 3 tries when the Scots scarcely know the way to the try line; and they gave away penalties like it was Xmas. This weekend the Wallabies better not rely on gifts from above to get them through – the Pumas are a different kettle of fish to the Scots.

Surely the fact that no team has won the World Cup three times militates against the Wallabies as much as nobody having gone back to back before is a mark against the ABs. I reckon the fact that the Wallabies had two sinners (with yellow cards) in the game against Wales would not go down too well upstairs, but then again no-one named Carter has ever won a World Cup. If there is a god they are going to be very busy weighing up the pros and cons before the final whistle.

If a ref gets it wrong in the 1st or the 50th minutes, at least the team that suffers from this has the opportunity to make amends. That’s why I don’t believe it was Wayne Barnes who lost the quarter final for the ABs in 2007 – it was their inability to make the most of later chances. But when the mistake happens in the 78th minute there is no chance for a comeback. But my point remains, where was the assistant referee when he was needed?

Which team do I support? The All Blacks, and anybody who is playing England.

It’s interesting that so far the comments have not acknowledged my basic thesis, that the assistant referee could have played a role in the incident but didn’t appear to. I have not seen this anywhere else, either. Surely one of their major roles is to ensure that the referee gets it right, or doesn’t miss something that they see.

What arrant nonsense, Spiro! In the micro second when the ball came off the first Scots player then bounced off Nick Phipps, no Scot had the opportunity to think, let alone try to get back on side. Phipps clearly tries to grasp the ball – watch his arm – and in doing so he puts all the Scots onside. Most people who have played or watched rugby for a while would immediately feel that Phipps has put the opposition onside. Why didn’t Joubert? Maybe he felt pressure to make an instant decision, but it was a catastrophic one. But the issue that strikes me, and nobody else seems to have raised it, is why didn’t his assistant on that side of the field put him right. He must have seen what went on and didn’t have the pressure that Joubert had. A quick word in his microphone would have averted a monumental wrong. Has anyone else noticed how Cheika and Foley are building their reputations on Joubert blunders? He was the one who wrongfully penalised McCaw to give the Waratahs their 2014 championship.

I suspect too much is made of the impact of individual players, and the effect when they are not there. Argentina did for Ireland with their incredible start, and their ability to come back after the Irish revival. Ireland is a bit light on depth of players but having O’Connell and Sexton and the others who were injured on the field against Argentina would have done nothing to stop the initial onslaught, nor to save them at the end. Ireland were caught out by a brilliant Argentina, and it’s very hard to get back into a game when you are way behind before you wake up. Argentina looked the goods when they pushed the All Blacks in their first game, and I’ve seen nothing since to change my opinion that they are the real deal. They are just another southern hemisphere team that has too much flair and ability for the northern hemisphere teams when everything else is equal.

I didn’t watch the Scotland/Wallabies game as I thought it not worth getting up in the early morning to watch a slaughter. We all make mistakes, don’t we!? But later I did see the incident that resulted in the penalty and my first reaction was that the Scot had been played onside by Phipps’ playing of the ball – and so it has been confirmed by World Rugby. Joubert made a mistake, but so did the All Blacks in the pool games – far too many. What gets me is that the assistant referee on that side of the field must have seen what happened, and did not have the pressure on him that Joubert had to make a decision. Why didn’t he help Joubert out and point out the obvious mistake?

So many go on about the AB slip-ups against France in 1999 and 2007, but no mention is made of the fact that in the two most important games the two have played in the World Cup (the finals of 1987 and 2011) the ABs have won them both. If the ABs play to anywhere near their potential they have nothing to fear from the French or anybody else.

The only part of the world where league has dominance over union is on the eastern seaboard of Australia. Even in England, where league began, New Zealand and France, league is a poor brother. But that’s not to say that union could not benefit from some of league’s aspects. The emphasis on scoring tries over kicking penalties; the running of the ball even from your own goal line in league; the lack of mind-numbing scrum collapses. Union doesn’t need carnival but it could adopt substance, and it does but it just takes a long time.

Chris Rogers deserved a good write up and you gave it to him, Geoff. I think he’s only the second Chris to play Test cricket for Australia, so here’s to Chris Rogers, the almost unique cricketer.

The Wallabies got the rub of the green in the Rugby Championship, playing both the Boks and ABs at home, and perversely they’ve got a great draw in the World Cup. If they can’t beat England and Wales they don’t deserve to be in England. Beat them, and Fiji for good measure, and they’re home on the pig’s back to the final. They’ve proved in a one off game they can beat the Boks or the ABs. So top Pool A and they make history. Miss out on top and they’re history.

The game at Eden Park has to be seen in the prism of the World Cup. I reckon Cheika wanted to see if he had the tools to play mean and nasty, as an insight for when the Wallabies play England at Twickenham. If, as appeared possible for 40 minutes, they could also rattle the ABs again they would score a huge psychological advantage for when/if they meet in the World Cup. OK, it didn’t come off, but Cheika has probably refined his ideas of how to play England and Wales, and they’ve still got the memory of Sydney if they are to meet the ABs. He didn’t sacrifice the Bledisloe but he gambled on it.

I enjoy your insights from the inside, Chris, but why do you have to be so partisan? There are so many “we” references, it’s almost like a team talk from Cheika. I know this is largely an Aussie site, but if views are given from an apparently objective base then they have more weight than as if they are from the Wallaby cheer squad. Otherwise we may as well just listen to Phil Kearns.

Do I notice a little hubris creeping in here? A bit like GW Bush declaring victory on the aircraft carrier! David, you didn’t mention that in 1949 the Wallabies were playing the best of the players that didn’t go to South Africa (including a few Maoris who should have gone, but for NZ’s shameful connivance in apartheid). In the analysis of last Saturday’s game I haven’t seen anyone talk of how close the game was, despite the woeful AB performance. I know that the Wallabies made some mistakes, but they had a pretty good night yet their tries came from poor missed tackles that I wouldn’t rely on again and a good grubber kick. With an AB team that is hopefully awake and on Eden Park, I wouldn’t be counting any chickens at this stage.

What happened to impartiality and balance in writing? David’s writing reads like a PR manifesto for the Wallabies, joining Phil Kearns and Greg Martin in fantasy land. Not a negative bone in Cheika? There are a few angry ones and anger impairs judgement. And while the Wallabies have been tearing each other apart at training and eating raw meat, the All Blacks have been lying back, sipping on some Marlborough whites and eating pavlova.

The beauty David at always seeing a light at the end of the tunnel is that one time in a hundred it’s not a train coming at you but salvation.

“Widespread agreement in rugby circles that the Wallabies would win …..”!!!!!? Surely only if those circles are painted on the ground at Circular Quay. On what evidence could you base an opinion that the Wallabies will win? It seems that the chatter coming out of the Wallaby camp provides the grounds for the confidence, but I recall the words of Michael Clarke and sundry others about how his batting will come right because he’s working so hard at training, and the Aussies will learn from their mistakes at Edgbaston. The only possible advantage the Wallabies might have is that their gamble with Pocock and Hooper might come off, but if the All Blacks could deal with Brussouw and the Bok monsters I’m guessing that they will have worked out a strategy to deal with Poopergate. Of course the Wallabies could win this Test, just like Ireland could have won any of the Tests they have played against the ABs in over 100 years but haven’t. But when you look at it man for man across the park, you have to ask where will the Wallabies get any advantage.

I appreciate that this is largely an Australian website, but references in articles to “we” (meaning the Wallabies) has all the objectivity of a Phil Kearns. Otherwise, an interesting article.

You can bemoan the relative lack of coverage for women’s sport till your black in the face, but to turn it around you will have to change thousands of years of conditioning. Read the Bible or any other holy book and see what they say about the different roles. Unfortunately, in the one area of major sport where women have got pay equality, they are getting the same pay for less. Serena Williams will be winning 6/1, 6/3 even in the quarter finals, and she’ll never be pushed into a five setter. By the quarter finals, even Federer has probably been forced into one or two five setters. Why can’t women play five setters? They now run the marathon, box, and do judo. Probably because of male TV schedulers!

Steve, instead of playing rugby there could be an Eisteddfod where every country does their national song or dance. I think the All Blacks would still win with the haka, but the Welsh would push them with “Land of Our Fathers” and the Scots would be in with a show with “Flower of Scotland”.

As for the French having it all over NZ in RWC knockout games, that’s a bit selective. In all RWC games the ABs are ahead, including the two ultimate knockout games in 1987 and 2011.

The fear for AB supporters at the World Cup is that there can always be a Mortlock intercept, a Pollard brace of tries, a French try from the end of the world or a Wayne Barnes’ decision and the composure of four years of domination goes out the window. In the last few years, England and the Boks have beaten the ABs; the Wallabies have drawn; and Ireland should have won. It just needs one of these at the wrong time and NZ will become the Land of the Long Black Shroud.

Ellis Park often a graveyard for the All Blacks?? Counting games at FNB Stadium in Johannesburg, the All Blacks have won 6 games in the city as against 9 by the Springboks, and of the Bok victories 4 have been by 3 or less. Not bad for a team playing at altitude in the “spiritual home” of SA rugby.

Wallaby supporters need to be very careful of the Messiah complex, where Moses in the form of Cheika is going to lead them to the promised land. They have very limited resources, especially in the forwards, and they had a very lucky win against a Bok team in Brisbane that went to sleep when its better players were subbed off. As they showed last year the Pumas will be no pushover this weekend. Their strength is Australia’s weakness, and their defence stood up quite well to the ABs last Saturday. The Wallabies must get close to parity in the forwards and then their backs can have a go, otherwise all their Tests south and north of the equator are going to be a struggle against the odds.