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'One of their worst performances': Wallabies their own worst enemy at Eden Park

Photo by Fiona Goodall/Getty Images

The Bledisloe Cup concluded Saturday with the All Blacks yet again coming away victorious while the Wallabies ill-discipline had them chasing the game early.

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Pundits on Sky’s The Breakdown all agreed Australia let themselves down in the second test, emphasising the start of the game was a sign that the Wallabies weren’t up for the challenge.

The All Blacks have shown their vulnerability in the opening minutes of tests this international season, with both Ireland and South Africa dominating the opening passage in the games they would go on to win.

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The Wallabies on the other hand malfunctioned to open both tests, the first game saw them drop the ball off the initial kickoff and in the second they received a yellow card in the opening minutes.

“The big mistake that the Wallabies (made) was they let themselves down early, got in yellow card trouble,” Jeff Wilson said.

“They were down to 14 men, if you were going to win at Eden Park, you needed to start well, deny the All Blacks points.

“They were desperate and they weren’t in a position at any stage up until their first try, they hadn’t any control of this game.

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“The All Blacks put on a dominant performance against a Wallaby team that just didn’t back up.”

Much was made of the close nature of the first Bledisloe test, a strong comeback from the Wallabies in the second half was evidence of the team’s attacking ability and gave the Australians a lot of confidence heading into the second test according to Wallabies captain James Slipper.

The sequel however saw the Australians fail to fire in what was one of their worst performances, according to Sir John Kirwin.

“I think as individuals, the Wallabies will get up this morning and be really disappointed in themselves,” Kirwan said.

“I thought that was one of their worst performances, they needed to start well, they didn’t, there was some… that first yellow card, they were lucky both of them wasn’t a red.

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“I’m not saying it should have been a red, but it could have been.

“If you want beat the All Blacks, you cannot afford to make those mistakes early.”

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Following losses to Ireland and South Africa, the All Blacks were then defeated by Argentina. They did manage to get some dominance to start that match and were winning at halftime only for Los Pumas to come out and score in the opening minutes of the second half and not relinquish the lead from there.

Another ex-All Black Mils Muliaina used the start of the second half as an example of the Australians’ inability to execute – making them the only All Blacks foe this year to not come away with a win against the Kiwis.

“It had the risk though, I think when you talk about that stuff that the All Blacks had, those missed opportunities, when they went into the break and they were 17 odd points up, it had the risk for the Australians to think ‘actually, we’re in this’ because they hadn’t played, they had yellow cards.

“Perhaps all those yellow cards, and all those penalties, one it mounted, but two, it probably zapped the Australians, I mean it really took a lot of juice out of their legs, they started to try and chase the game and that’s where I think the All Blacks lifted another level.”

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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