The Wallabies are in their best position in a decade to get the hoodoo of hoodoos off their backs and win their first spring tour Grand Slam since 1984.
This hoodoo is older than Eden Park, makes the Bledisloe look like an infant, and someone’s recent fuss about New Zealand’s measly 15 years without a clean sweep just makes me want to say “get over it”.
The Rugby Championship provided Joe Schmidt and his crew mates the opportunity to face the world’s best under varying circumstances.
With our Goliath of Gath and an experienced head re-directing the team from first-half shipwrecks, we showed what we can do with focus, determination, a will to win, and a refusal to give up. Well mostly.
We lost a few overboard, and our biggest player was seconded to another ship, exposing a bit of a soft mental underbelly that still exists.
But all is not lost.
Today, we have a new coach and a new crew. A coach who comes with an impressive international resume and a crew that has not been plucked from the NRC and thrown straight to the Test match wolves.
So how did we fair at The Rugby Championship?
Well in order of events, I was surprised, then not surprised, then not surprised, not surprised, hopeful but not surprised, hopeful and a little surprised.
Beating SA at altitude was a huge win. We showed our battle fitness forged with the Lions and caught the Springboks (and pretty much everyone else) by surprised.
Then the South Africans brought their A-game, not necessarily by performance, but their tactics. Classic Bok Ball as I call it. It was always going to happen after their first up shock loss.
TonyBall would be temporarily shelved to avoid a second straight defeat and fair enough, they set themselves a clear objective and achieved it. Well played.
Tom Wright in full flight during the Wallabies’ win over the Springboks at Ellis Park. Photo: Julius Dimataga, Rugby Australia
Onto the Pumas. Honestly, this played out more or less as expected. You would have to have been living under a rugby rock not to know these guys can beat anyone these days. After going one all with the Men in Black, it was always going to be game on. Their rapid fire backs and commitment to the ruck, was always going to present us with a serious challenge.
As such, I was very happy to see us score four tries and only concede two. The way we clawed that game out of the Pumas’ grasp in extra time, reminded me of the countless times the All Blacks did that to us. The four tries to one return game should have seen us walk away with three wins from four games, but for our return to old penalty form and the zero’d in boot of Santi Carreras.
The All Blacks, oh the All Blacks. Even in very sub-par form with many questions over the New Zealanders’ ability to man up and find a way to win, we still couldn’t snatch victory at Eden Park. My old man before he recently departed this present life, said “Will I ever see another Eden Park win?”. Sadly not, and I’m beginning to wonder the same.
We got close, so close. Where’s a Cheslin Kolbe goal line drop out when you really need one?
The match in Perth was exciting for a wet weather game, thanks largely to the Wallabies insistence that they could still fling the ball about and hold onto it. We literally had nothing to lose and in large part, we attacked like it. Unfortunately, we defended as if we were still sulking over our Eden Park loss. I can’t be critical of Tom Hooper’s important miss, as that was a damn good fend. That Kiwi arm shot out like it was a training run practiced a hundred times. It was picture perfect.
Beauden Barrett of the All Blacks is tackled during the The Rugby Championship & Bledisloe Cup match between New Zealand All Blacks and Australia Wallabies at Eden Park on September 27, 2025 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)
When it comes to analysing the games, I am always left in wonderment at various Roarers abilities to comment so succinctly on each player’s game. Maybe it’s my attention span or lack of affinity for detail, but I just can’t keep up. Instead, I see themes; broad pictures of what we did well and what we didn’t. So here it is.
Our maul defence has improved out of sight. No longer are we easy beats for anyone willing to throw the ball into the field of play five metres out from our line. Gone are the days where all good teams had to do was get into that position and Voilà 5-7 points.
Our scrum is amazing. It is bordering on a weapon. Not too long ago, we couldn’t resist a gentle Ox breeze. Now, it’s as if someone has sat our boys down, taught them how to pop their shoulders, keep their backs straight, look up, lower the hips, engage the core and very importantly, keep breathing while the bloke opposite them tries to push their spine out their backside. You know, the basics.
Our defence is a welcome sight, both in general play and on the try line. Overall, we seem to be connected and moving as one; drifting as a school of fish, albeit after a night out on the clams. It’s not perfect, and the midfield can be slow to react at times, but it’s great to see players showing greater faith in their team mate to cover their weak shoulder while they focus on crunching anyone with the ball who has the temerity to run on their other side. Defence wins matches, as long as you keep on the ref’s good side.
Talking of such, if we hadn’t slipped up here and kept to our pre-Puma form, this might be a different article altogether. As soon as our big boy left, it’s as if we felt we had to do extra to win. That extra being pushing the envelope further than the man in charge would tolerate. Admittedly, we copped a few dodgy calls, but we weren’t alone on that front (thankfully). And let’s not forget Andrew Kellaway’s pass that nearly crossed the try line on it’s own before even reaching Filipo Daugunu, giving us an all important extra bonus point that separated the two also-rans.
One thing I would really like to have a chat in Schmidt’s ear about, is the propensity of our forwards to do two things.
Hang back and wait for their next carry, while one or two Wallaby forwards battle an opposition counter ruck. It’s as if they are just happy to say “Do your best boys.”
While a couple of opposition loosies, a prop or two and a hooker, pile in to steal our ball. It really isn’t good enough yet and it costs us too much momentum.
They do know the Ruck Fairy who goes in and magically secures our ball against all opposition forces, is an imaginary being right? Watching the Pumas forwards pile into rucks at lightning speed, you’d be forgiven for thinking that securing their own ball at ruck time, was a primary job.
Admittedly, a forwards job is much more complicated now than it was when I last played rugby, but always remember basic principles: You can’t do jack without the ball. On far too many occasions, one of our forwards will pick ’n’ go from the back of a ruck and get isolated.
It’s painful to watch an opposition forward bend over the tackled player, filling the void left by our lack of support, while I wait for the whistle to blow from a ref who seems to be hugging himself in the “holding on” pose.
As an observer, I don’t see the point of doing this without knowing you have a wingman or two to secure the ball. I get that its rapid fire continuity, but without supporting forwards, it just becomes another case of “Crash and burn Mav”.
Anyway, on a personal note, I’ve seen enough to have confidence in this spring tour. After all, it’s not like it’s the Springboks or the All Blacks. It’s Japan, England, Italy, Ireland and France.
It reminds me of the scene out of stripes where Winger and Ziskey are guarding the latest EM-50 Urban assault vehicle and took it for their own joy ride through Europe; into Czechoslovakia more specifically. “it’s Czechoslovakia man”, what could go wrong?
They had some fun, made the enemy look like fools and received a heroes welcome.
Bring it on Wallabies, the same awaits you.
Passit2mehttps://https://ift.tt/nHcXikf takeaways and why Wallabies can slam the spring tour
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