Australia vs New Zealand
– Was I Just Watching Wales?
Australia 28 – 49 New Zealand
The Welsh Rugby Blog hasn’t tended to bother with other nationalities in our look at rugby, but that is something that is going to change over the coming season. Whilst we are still going to keep our focus on Welsh rugby we will also be looking at rugby the world over – such as yesterdays match between Australia and New Zealand
(Remember if you want to write for the Welsh Rugby Blog get in touch!).
I Think I Just Watched Wales
Watching that game I was struck by a number of things
- Just how good the two opensides were. McCaw and Pocock were top class. Again.
- The ref was awful, but as he was a SH ref the commentators were far more lenient to him. Wonder if South African coach Peter De Villiers is going to accuse his fellow country man Craig Joubert of bias etc?
- New Zealand were good, but didn’t have to be any better than that to beat Australia.
- Watching the Aussies was like watching Wales.
It was 4) that struck me the most. How many times have we taken on the Southern Hemisphere giants, done some very good stuff – but continually shot ourselves in the foot, losing heavily?
For the Aussies the catalogue of errors was shocking
- Charged down – cost 1 try
- Running with no support – at least 1 more try
- Missed tackles
- Missing touch
- Missing kicks at goal
- Turnovers
The lack of accuracy at important moments, even when they had 15 men on the field (Mitchell being sin binned then sent off early in the 2nd half) meant that aside from the first 20 they were never really at the races.
You can not afford to have repeated brain farts, to lack accuracy when you are playing a team that are as good as the All Blacks are right now. But it is exactly what Wales did on the tour (how many missed tackles) and exactly what Australia did yesterday.
To be fair the pace of the game from both teams was astounding – and something Wales are going to have to match if they are going to get anywhere next World Cup. There were some good performances by both teams, Meealamu and Rocky Elsom both stood out, as did the consistently brilliant Brad Thorne.
The Aussie pack allowed the Kiwis to constantly make easy yards through the middle, and it is there that anyone playing the Aussies should look. From the All Blacks perspective I am yet again struck by the fact that they looked a little frail when the opposition tried something rather than simply playing by numbers, and they looked worries when faced with significant pressure when they had the ball. I am convinced a fast paced, off the cuff attacking game coupled with a fast and strong (pure) blitz can make this team come apart – perhaps tailor made for France to shock them yet again in a World Cup.
All in all a damn good game, even if the result was rarely in doubt. The pace and skill levels, even with the Aussie mistakes, was far higher than Wales have produced in the last 2 years. But I am convinced that the NH teams can easily match this Aussie team and I think a team prepared to ‘take it to’ the All Blacks would have a very good shot.
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