Rugby old-timers call it the hospital pass – “a pass made under pressure without considering the situation of the receiver, who is stationary and an easy target”. In the opening minutes of Saturday’s Bledisloe Cup opener, with New Zealand perched on Australia’s line, Tate McDermott was thrown a dangerously floating ball from the lineout that necessitated he raise his arms, expose his ribs, and catch the ball eye-high before readjusting to swivel it off his hips and get it to someone with half a hope of not being obliterated.
One measly extra second was required but McDermott – 24 Tests into his career but newly promoted to the starting XV in Melbourne – didn’t have it. Like a bull shark from the deep moving at missile speed, All Black lock Scott Barrett came in low and lethal, nailing the young halfback in a heart-targeting tackle, driving him over the line and jolting the ball loose to gift Shannon Frizell the first of New Zealand’s six tries.
It was not his error but McDermott copped the punishment, avoided hospitalisation and moved on, sparking Australia’s fightback to 7-5 and leading a young side to a rare early superiority against their arch-nemeses. They’re the qualities that has seen coach Eddie Jones name the Bundaberg-born McDermott, still just 24, Australia’s 86th Test captain for the second Bledisloe match in Dunedin on Saturday afternoon.
It may well be another hospital pass. Australia were walloped 38-7 in Melbourne to take their record to 0-3 this season and haven’t won in Dunedin for 22 years. But it’s all part of Jones’s belief that the men in gold can get out of the gutter by aiming for the stars. “We started a regeneration as a team last week and now it’s about building on that with a new captain and a new era in Australian rugby,” Jones said. “On Saturday night in Dunedin we get an opportunity to continue our growth as a team.”
Dunedin hosted the first ever Australia-New Zealand clash across the ditch in 1905. Even back then, it was too great an assignment, with Australia beaten 14-3 by a team that became the “All Blacks” mere days later. It was a third-string home side, with many of their best players on a 42-day sea voyage to tour Britain, France and North America. But they were still superior. “Our defeat can be put down to weak tackling and inferior handling of the ball,” wrote Australian team manager JR Henderson.
The same blights affect this current Wallabies side. Australia have now conceded more than 30 points in three straight defeats, falling off one-on-one tackles with such regularity that the heat on defence coach, former NRL great and union rookie Brett Hodgson, is now at boiling point. And their handling of the ball, despite a new halves pairing in McDermott and 22-year-old Carter Gordon with many promising waves of attack, yielded just one try last week, and that was by a forward, No 8 Rob Valetini.
McDermott has had the leadership thrust upon him because Australia’s most capped captain, Michael Hooper, is injured, and stand-in skipper Allan Alaalatoa ruptured his Achilles last weekend. The task is immense, given he will be skippering a starting side with just 277 Test caps, the seventh-lowest this century. With Hooper (124 caps) out and James Slipper (130) benched, Samu Kerevi is the senior man with 44 caps.
With frontline props Alaalatoa and Taniela Tupou sidelined, Melbourne-born Pone Fa’amausili gets a starting debut at tighthead, while Richie Arnold is back in the starting side for the benched Will Skelton to partner Nick Frost in the second row. Fraser McReight returns at openside flanker, with Tom Hooper shifting to blindside.
It’s a young side but it’s got plenty to play for: Bledisloe redemption first, but the World Cup starts in 37 days and seats on the plane to France are still up for grabs.
After Dunedin, the Wallabies have a World Cup warm-up against France on 28 August then pool matches against Georgia, Fiji, Wales and Portugal to find their best 23. But with All Blacks coach Ian Foster taking his cue from 1905 and picking a second-string side to rest his titans, this Saturday’s dead rubber is a big opportunity.
Jones was national coach when the Wallabies last beat New Zealand at Carisbrook, Dunedin’s infamous “House of Pain”, in 2001. It was the last time the Bledisloe trophy was won by Australia and the men in gold haven’t been victorious there since, losing 35-29 in 2017 and 41-33 in 2013. Saturday’s 177th meeting of the sides is a chance to flip the script and derail a rugby juggernaut if a young side can evoke the spirits of 2001.
“We played so bright,” Jones recalled of that 2001 victory, the first time the Wallabies had tasted victory in Dunedin after 96 long years of trying. “We targeted their lineout and made them play. We just kept turning them around with our attacking kicks in behind and we pressured them in greasy conditions. When the All Blacks are under pressure, they make errors like any team and we did that brilliantly.”
The Wallabies created that pressure last week. This week they must capitalise on it. But beware the hospital pass. As McDermott knows, it can be a bullet to the heart.
