How the Wallabies can silence the gloating All Blacks in remaining Bledisloe Cup battles
The Bledisloe Cup is still very much alive and as the All Blacks, fresh from another Eden Park success, prepare to come to Australia, they will do well not to get too ahead of themselves.
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Fed up with hearing the All Blacks gloat about how they never lose at Eden Park?
Well, don’t give up on the Wallabies turning things around in Sydney next time they play.
That’s the rallying call from prop James Slipper, who is so confident the Wallabies won’t make the same schoolboy errors they committed in Sunday’s 27-7 second test loss to the All Blacks in Auckland, he’s even offering a guarantee the result will be different on home soil.
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“We didn’t play the game we trained to play and coming up against a good All Blacks team you just can’t do that,” Slipper said.
“We gave them too much ball and we missed a lot of tackles so that’s going to be the key for us to work on.
“As everyone saw we missed 40 tackles and we let their outside backs really clean up but the good thing is we get to play them in two weeks time and I guarantee it’ll be a better outcome.”
Never shy about beating their own drum, the New Zealanders will probably be in stitches at Slipper’s claim after they put the Wallabies to the sword to take a 1-0 lead in the Bledisloe Cup series, but his claims aren’t as far-fetched as the Kiwis would have you think.
They may be unbeatable at their Eden Park fortress, but the All Blacks have a long history of getting carried away with all the back slapping they receive for winning at home only to lose their next game against Australia.
Remember the 2003 Rugby World Cup semi-final?
The Wallabies beat the New Zealanders to make the final, after they had been soundly beaten at Eden Park the last time they met.
What about the 1991 Rugby World Cup? That was the first time the Wallabies won the sport’s greatest title after beating New Zealand in the semis. But just before the World Cup, the Wallabies went to Eden Park and lost.
It was the same in 1999 – the second time the Wallabies won the World Cup. Earlier that year they lost at Eden Park then turned the tables when they met again in Sydney.
In 2011, the Wallabies beat the Kiwis to win the Tri-Nations after losing to them in Auckland.
And the list goes on and on – which is why the Wallabies still believe they can win the remaining two tests to regain the Bledisloe Cup after the first test in Wellington ended in a 16-16 draw.
“There’s a lot of confidence in the group and we’re well aware this Bledisloe is still alive,” Slipper said.
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“We played well in Wellington and we probably let ourselves down (at Eden Park) but we’ve got two games back at home, leading off in Sydney (October 31) and then in Brisbane (November 7) and we’re pretty excited to get back and get stuck in because there’s one thing this group wants to do and that’s win the Bledisloe.
“Yes, we’ve got a lot of work to do but we don’t feel like we’re too far away as well.
“We’re confident in what we’re doing, we had two disallowed tries as well so while you can look at the outcome of the scoreline, at the end of the day we don’t feel like we’re too far behind them.
“We’ve obviously got lots of areas in our game that we need to improve such as defence and holding on to the ball but we can’t wait for the next game.”
TURNING THE TABLES
1990
The All Blacks beat the Wallabies 27-17 at Eden Park but two weeks later, the Australians won 21-9 at Athletic Park in Wellington, with Phil Kearns scoring the only try of the match and famously giving two fingers and a mouthful to the New Zealanders.
1991
The All Blacks beat the Wallabies 6-3 in the rain at Eden Park but two months later they met in Dublin in the semi-finals of the Rugby World Cup, where the Kiwis were the defending champions. The Wallabies won 16-6, with David Campese and Tim Horan scoring sensational tries, then went on to beat England in the final.
1999
The All Blacks beat the Wallabies 34-15 at Eden Park but five weeks later the Wallabies smashed them 28-7 in Sydney to retain the Bledisloe Cup – with the 21-point margin remaining the equal biggest defeat in All Blacks history. The Wallabies went on to win the Rugby World Cup for the second time later that year after the All Blacks cracked under pressure and lost to France in the semi-finals.
2003
The All Blacks beat the Wallabies 21-17 at Eden Park to regain the Bledisloe Cup but it was a different story when they met in the Rugby World Cup semi-finals three months later, with Stirling Mortlock’s length of the field intercept try off Carlos Spencer leading Australia to a 22-10 victory and a place in the final.
2011
The All Blacks beat the Wallabies 30-14 at Eden Park but three weeks later, Will Genia, Radike Samo and Kurtley Beale all scored tries as the Wallabies bounced back to win 25-20 in Brisbane and secure the Tri-Nations title.
2019
The All Blacks beat the Wallabies 40-12 at Eden Park in 2018 but in 2019 – the last time the two teams played each other in Australia – the Wallabies won 47-26 in Perth, the most points any side has ever scored against New Zealand. The All Blacks reign as world champions ended later that year.
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