Painful as Saturday’s Bledisloe Cup defeat was for the Wallabies, and frustrating as the Eddie Jones’s team were, they cannot afford to drop their heads. They must fly into Dunedin on Sunday and prepare for an All Blacks rematch on Saturday. Jones says they will “train on the plane” if they must. “Transforming a team from where they are now to a team that’s capable of beating New Zealand takes a lot of hard work. The clock’s ticking.”
Ever louder for Jones himself. His grand reboot of Australian rugby is still in flux after a 0-3 start to his second stint as coach and hopes are fading fast for the World Cup kicking off in 40 days. At the MCG, their last game on home soil, Jones did his impish best to inject self-belief in his beleaguered troops. “What we can do is prepare really well, get out of the blocks. If we’re able to match them in the first 20 minutes and put a bit of pressure on them, which they haven’t had this year, funny things can happen.”
The Wallabies did that on Saturday night. They picked a new-look side which blooded youth in vital positions. Livewire flyhalf Carter Gordon had a game to forget with the boots, shanking penalties, restarts and midfield kicks, but in his first Test as starter, the 22-year-old showed enough flair with the hands for Jones to show faith for Dunedin. Flanker Tom Hooper, 21, in his second Test, tackled his heart out (a game-high 32) and created havoc at the breakdown. And winger Mark Nawaqanitawase, 22, in his Bledisloe debut, brought fast, inventive energy and set up the sole Australian try.
That young blood was key to Australia’s fast start too. The Wallabies did what no other team has done so far this Rugby Championship and matched the All Blacks early, leading for 33 minutes. Against South Africa and Argentina, New Zealand blew their rivals off the park from the first whistle and were too relentless to let them back into the contest. Australia leaked an early try but recovered, scoring one of their own to Rob Valetini to get ahead 7-5.
That hot half hour is where Jones can draw hope for next week. “If you arrived from Mars and watched the first 20 minutes, you’d probably think the gold team was the stronger team – that’s the reality,” Jones said after. “I saw enough today to make me believe we can [turn it around]. If we went out today and couldn’t play with any cohesiveness or connection, I’d be putting up my hands, thinking ‘what’s going on?’ But I didn’t. I saw a team who knew how they wanted to beat New Zealand.”
The colder “reality” is Australia could not sustain that half hour and although they started the second half brightly, the All Blacks were too fast, strong, smart and fit. As we’ve seen often in 21 years of Bledisloe defeats, the Wallabies dash themselves against the black wall then get tossed around by a black cat with a gold canary. Even New Zealand coach Ian Foster saw more in the Wallabies than the 38-7 scoreline. “The scoreline flattered us, to be perfectly honest,” he said. “We clearly deserved the win but there was enough in that Aussie performance. They will take away some good points. But they’ll regret they couldn’t put prolonged periods of pressure on us.”
Jones knows it. He has six days to fix it for Dunedin and six weeks for the World Cup. “When we put pressure on we can’t turn that into points, and then we release pressure,” Jones observed. In the panic that ensues, Australia’s ugly discipline record gets uglier, as shown by two yellow cards in Melbourne (four of the All Blacks’ six tries came while Marika Koroibete and Taniela Tupou were off), and heads drop. “We still seem to get disappointed on the field when we don’t get the rewards we think we deserve.” Then the knife twists. “You get a whupping, and the injuries come.”
Although several young Wallabies made successful returns from injury – prop Bell put in a barnstorming performance, Jordan Petaia shucked the rust at 13, and Andrew Kellaway ran and caught well at fullback – several veterans are in strife. Tighthead prop Allan Alaalatoa may be out of the World Cup with a ruptured Achilles, Tupou is in doubt for Dunedin with a rib injury and Michael Hooper’s calf is still not responding to treatment. That’s over 350 Tests’ worth of experience up in smoke.
Australia sit winless in the Rugby Championship with a lowly world ranking of eighth and have the two hottest teams in planet rugby to take on next: New Zealand (the new No 1) and France (now No 2) at Stade de France on 28 August. They have built some depth and blooded some talent. They’ve shown flashes of brilliance and signs that better things are ahead. They’ve uncovered some real stars. But when it comes to the crunch – and a crunch coming fast – will it be enough?
