Yes, we lost again - but for a glorious 20 minutes the Wallabies looked unstoppable

2 days ago 6

Can we just forget for a moment that final score of 30-14 down, to the All Blacks?

Just for a moment, I said!

For, despite the fact that technically – if you want to be all prissy and (sniff) mathematical about it – the match was, yes, nominally another loss, there was plenty to salvage from the game to warm the cockles of the soul.

Harry Potter breaks free against the All Blacks.

It’s just a pity the truly great stuff was concentrated in the first 20 minutes when the Wallabies were simply astonishing. In difficult conditions after a day’s rain and up against a champion side, our blokes unleashed such a blistering array of passes, charges, chip-kicks, aerial acrobatics and sidesteps that it was breathtaking.

No matter that, against the run of play, the All Blacks scored an early try to make it 7-6. The Wallabies were so good — soooo good — they could absorb setbacks like that and still launch raid after devastating raid.

For we seriously had forwards showing sleight of hand passes that would do backs proud, and backs the size of Len Ikitau pulling off crushing tackles on big men that even a prop would be happy to take home to show his mother.

Winger Filipo Daugunu surges through the defence to offload the ball.

The Australians looked, dinkum, exactly like the team that had put 38 points on the Springboks at Ellis Park six weeks ago – did I mention? – just in the second half! Back then, they looked like the most dangerous, breathtaking rugby team in the world. And in this 20 minutes, they were like that again.

Look at what happened in the 12th minute, as it was emblematic both of their awesome capacity when they had their Maserati in top gear, and of the final result.

After truly awesome leadup work by Harry Wilson, Billy Pollard and Jake Gordon, the ball spun out to Joseph Aukuso Suaalii on the left flank, who got it to lock Nick Frost who accelerated past the despairing defence and got it to winger Filipo Daugunu. He spun, surged and purged, before handing it to flanker Fraser Mcreight to slice through the All Blacks right flank, and put winger Harry Potter in space as the 62,000 strong crowd came to their feet.

Rise with them, and watch now, as Potter heads infield, dodging – count ’em – one, two, three, four, five, six tackles, looking for support! And what does he find?

Why, he finds 140 kilograms of prime Australian beef, otherwise known as Will Skelton, on the fly! Skelton charges forward, and just as he is brought to ground manages to slip it to Slipper, James, on the burst, who goes within centimetres of scoring a try in his 151st and final Test, before he, too, goes down.

Finally the ball comes to his fellow prop Allan Alaalatoa who goes over. What a try! The ball had gone through no fewer than fifteen sets of hands – the royal flush – on the way to the line, and left the All Blacks standing, their heads bowed behind the line to their masters. The Wallabies have gone to what will be a 13-7 lead with the conversion and . . .

And what?

The referee wants the bunker to check something. Oh, our own Tom Hooper has, technically, illegally cleaned out Beauden Barrett from a ruck. Not only was it no try, but Hooper was sent to the bin for ten minutes. So instead of a 13-7 lead, the All Blacks are back to 7-6 up and able to roof it down field and go on the attack.

New Zealand’s Quinn Tupaea dives over the line to score a try.

See? It really was that kind of night. The Wallabies had the skill level to achieve awesome things but . . . it just didn’t quite work out.

For after one more penalty goal to put our blokes 9-7 up after 17 minutes, it was then that the green and gold Maserati really did start to blow smoke. After mastering the truly esoteric stuff, executing passes that could have been circus tricks, they began to be let down by the most basic of basics.

With Will Skelton taken from the field for concussion, our pack lost some of its sting. One kick-off went out on the full. The ball didn’t go in straight from a crucial line-out pressing their line. Other simple lineouts were lost. Basic tackles were missed and the All Blacks scored two strong tries in the last eight minutes of the half through porous defence, to go to a 17-9 lead at the break.

Len Ikitau leaves the field after receiving a yellow card.

But, hope still sprung eternal.

Often in this championship, the Wallabies have come back from 20-odd points down, so this felt almost like a ten-point lead! They could still do it, surely?

Perhaps, if the referee had been kinder – or at least more comprehensible – and we had more of the rub of the green. For just five minutes in, Australia suffered another sin-bin, this time for Len Ikitau accidentally getting his melon in the way of a charging All Black melon.

That, and still more penalties put the Wallabies up against it, even if Ikitau was able to come back on to burrow his way over, for the Wallabies to be down just 20-14 with fifteen minutes to go.

Alas, alas, another penalty to New Zealand put them up 23-14 and a final try after the siren gave them – nominally, if you believe the technorats I said! – the whole game, 30-14.

Alright, alright, alright. In the end, it was, yes, a loss.

But it changes nowt that this a team on a radical rise, clearly capable of big things, and in the near future at that. This has been a frustrating if still wonderful Championship. After an exhilarating Lions series where the Wallabies came close to greatness, they have displayed more of the same: true greatness in patches. They simply need to learn to be less patchy about it.

They will be heading off on their Spring tour in a fortnight, where five Tests await: Japan, England, Italy, Ireland and France. They have learnt a lot from the year so far.

We can expect more great things. We just need it for eighty minutes. Consecutively!