Did a missed penalty at the death cost Australia Bledisloe 1 victory?

I think the issue, Paulo, is that not one current AB forward would make a World starting XV or the bench. In 2015 few of them wouldn't have . Given that, it's not really surprising that they look more vulnerable than for over a decade.

Worth a shot I thought lol It does seem like they have been bullied a few times recently, and have gotten away with a few games due to miracle scores. SA in the cup pool game comes to mind. Ever since Chicago where we messed around with our forwards, the blue print to beat us has been fairly easy to read.

'Is it enough for us to claim the underdog status do you think?' Can't get away with that one, Paulo. But, I do think, and have done for about 3 years now, that the ABs need to get to grips with their pack. That was an inexperienced Aussie pack, and I thought they had the better of it. That Aussie pack would not go as well against the Boks, England, France, Ireland or Wales. That should be a sobering thought for AB fans, but it doesn't seem to be. In my view, there's been too much emphasis on waltzing around on the wing in Super Rugby by forwards who should stick to the day job first and foremost.

Agreed. At the end of the day, that really was a great test, in pretty poor conditions. Looking forward to these teams on a dry track. I think the Wallabies coach has more up his sleeve than the ABs one at this stage. Is it enough for us to claim the underdog status do you think?

Yep, agreed.

Well put FunBus. That’s the crux of it. But anyway, it’s just a sport. A bit irksome as a Wallabies fan but there are bigger issues in the world. Even in terms of that match I’d rather focus on the performance than the refereeing.

Absolutely, and I agree had this been awarded it’s game over. And I agree too that not all calls are equal in their impact on the game, but there are some through every game, and had they been made a different way, the outcome would have been different. Maybe not as certain as this one, which I get it, is why everyone is focused on this one. But I think we are better served looking at what we can do to help the refs get it right rather than whinge and moan about something that can’t be changed. Let’s instead look at something that CAN be changed. And yea, AB fans moaned for years about French forward passes or underarm bowls, or who knows what else, so I do know exactly what I am talking about when I say we need to focus on something that can be changed, not on what can’t.

I get your point - it just doesn’t stand up. It’s about predictability of consequences. A meaningless penalty on halfway in the first half changes how the subsequent game unfolds, but not in any ways that are predictable. Spotting the foot in touch for the first try removes that seven points. In a low-scoring game we can speculate on its impact, but with no certainty. However a penalty, in overtime, in front of the posts has highly predictable consequences. Kickers land it 95% of the time, or higher.

I saw a few things for the ABs but I’m sure you saw more, it’s just the way it is.

saw a few thing wallabies should of been penalised for but weren't

Only seeing things going against the Wallabies and only the ABs getting away with things is called sub-conscious bias too. I’m glad you brought that up.

Some AB fans will have a whinge about ref calls, you should find that I haven’t in recent memory. Don’t paint us all with the same brush.

Yes, the fans need to remember that it's swings n roundabouts with this territory. I've always had the attitude that teams/captains/coaches have to be smart enough with the quality of their skills, execution and discipline to take the ref out of the equation. The Wallabies have lost that art for a long time, and need to regain it. You just can't do dumb things in Tests, and you can't give the ref a reason to blow his whistle; or at least minimally. You have to focus on your own game. I would argue that the Wallabies gifted the AB's far too many opportunities to attack with good field position and in many ways, were lucky they were not at their best yesterday. Another time/game, the AB's could easily have put 20 or more points on with those invitations. So rather than whinge about the ref, look more closely at your own team's performance, and how easily they could have been in front by the 79th minute, and then the non-penalty at that moment is actually irrelevant. That is the challenge to players and coaches.

Yep, the Scotland game is another example, and Scotland just have to suck that one up too to bad luck! Yes, that performance in SA with the 20-1 penalty count definitely warranted criticism, although I wish sometimes people would just single out the individual, rather than push it as a national agenda :happy:

Think you have missed my point. ANY call is game changing as it literally changes the game.

Well, maybe not 40, but yea, you might have got the win. Or maybe they hook him earlier for stuffing it up, and ALB fixes the defence problem in that channel, and Koroibete doesn’t score his try. We don’t know.

Spot on Pinetree. I think there was a SR match in South Africa last year (or the year before) and the penalty count was 20-1 with the local side benefitting from 20 penalties. Now that is worthy of reffing complaints. The rest? You just gotta roll with it. It reminds me of Joubert's penalty against Scotland that got the Wallabies a semi-final win in RWC15. I think the Bled 1 draw was the right result tbh.

Sometimes a bad call at the end of a game can determine the match, like it did yesterday, but I get what Paulo is saying and agree with him. Rugby has so many laws, and requires refs to be always looking at the right spot and see clear mistakes. But this is an impossible standard to keep up. Refs will usually make about 6-12 mistakes per game. Sometimes those mistakes are at the start, other times middle, and like yesterday at the end. You can't blame a ref more for making a human mistake at the end of the game any more than earlier on. It is like picking a number between 1-6, throwing a dice in a game where you lose if that number pops up, then blaming the dice if that number does pop up. Sometimes you just get unlucky, blame bad luck, but don't bash the refs who have a hard enough time already, and shout bias at every opportunity you get. The ref didn't purposely set up a missed penalty at the end of the game, he just made one of the mistakes that refs make in every game at the end of the game. Just like NZ vs the BIL with the draw and ref missing the penalty, we both need to just accept it as bad luck and move on. Not saying NZ is innocent any more than Aussie's, just that ref bashing really irritates me unless a ref has an absolute shocker of a game!

Perhaps. Or perhaps the ABs are on the slide. Personally, I think it’s somewhere in the middle.

This is nonsense, and particularly laughable from an AB fan given their reputation for whining for years about ‘getting the big calls right.’ There were three game defining calls. The two AB tries and the ‘penalty’ in front of the posts.