Bledisloe Cup, Wallabies v All Blacks: New team, same old Eden Park story

Australia may have had a relatively new side but in the end it was an old and tiresome story as the Wallabies fell off tackles.

All Blacks winger Caleb Clarke was responsible for half of Australia’s missed tackles.

Australia may have had a relatively new side, but in the end it was an old and tiresome story as the Wallabies fell off tackles, struggled to make their hits and allowed the All Blacks to build that ferocious, familiar momentum.

There will be those who ascribe it all to the “Eden Park hoodoo” but certainly Wallabies coach Dave Rennie was not one of them. The All Blacks, he noted, win an awful lot of Test matches at an awful lot of venues and while no other ground might match the Auckland fortress record of 20 straight wins over 34 years against Australia, in the end it mattered little where the match was played given the way the Wallabies played it.

Having put down a marker last weekend in Wellington during the 16-16 draw, the Australians erred yesterday in ways that never became apparent at Sky Stadium. They missed more tackles in the first half alone – 22 – than they did during the entire Bledisloe I Test, where they missed 19. And when the player who single-handedly was responsible for half of those missed, Caleb Clarke, was allowed to run freely, each missed tackle somehow made another missed tackle more likely.

It’s often said that the All Blacks make you pay for every mistake and never was that better illustrated than in the 46th minute when James O’Connor – looking around and finding no backline arrayed outside him – put up a midfield bomb.

Had that kick been launched in Wellington, a battalion of Australian defenders would have swarmed through after it, monstering whichever All Black was brave enough to catch it. Yesterday, however, there was no contestability about the Wallabies’ kicks. On this occasion, it landed in the hands of the one man Australia should have been smart enough to avoid at all costs – Jonah Lomu clone Clarke. He cut loose, shedding one, two, three, four, five, six defenders before finally being tackled but by then Australia only had winger Filipo Daugunu to defend against five attackers.

The All Blacks scored two tries within six minutes of the restart, three within 14 minutes and it was apparent NZ coach Ian Foster had sorted out his side. Most of their attack after the interval came down the 10-12 channel, but this time it wasn’t O’Connor and Matt To’omua defending there but O’Connor and Hunter Paisami.

Michael Hooper of the Wallabies looks on during the Bledisloe Cup match at Eden Park.

One of the things Rennie will be looking out for when he reviews this game will be how much support the backrow provided to O’Connor in defence. From first glance, not a lot.

Certainly the midfield organisation was throw off badly by To’omua’s adductor injury and, as George Gregan remarked after the match, such problems aren’t remedied quickly. Chances are he will not make it to the starting line for the October 31 Test in Sydney and that represents a major problem for the Australian side.

Sam Cane of the All Blacks leads the haka during the Bledisloe Cup match at Eden Park.

Toomua’s value was most evident when he wasn’t there. Suddenly the Australian attack lost direction, lost confidence. Paisami has done wonderfully over the last nine days but he hasn’t played at 12, even for the Reds, and all the hints and advice To’omua has whispered in O’Connor’s ear suddenly went unsaid.

The obvious contender would be Irae Simone, of the Brumbies, but given the fact that the bulk of his backline will be from Queensland, Rennie should give serious thought to Reds’ inside centre, Hamish Stewart.

Aside from his frustrating habit of conceding penalties – which admittedly can be a serious problem against the All Blacks, as Ned Hanigan demonstrated yesterday – Stewart has a Toomua-like talent of playing Test match football at all times, even during Super Rugby matches. He would need to make few adjustments to his game and he certainly has established combinations with both Paisami and Jordan Petaia.

Codie Taylor of the All Blacks packs in a scrum during the Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies at Eden Park.

It is unlikely Hanigan will have done enough to placate dubious Wallabies supporters. He made some wonderful contributions yesterday, none better than when he made inroads for Marika Koroibete’s try, but the two penalties he conceded in two driving mauls within moments of each other were just mindless.

“Back-to-back penalties and you find yourself 5-10m from your own line,” said Wallabies captain Michael Hooper, referring to Hanigan piggybacking the All Blacks down the field. “We have to sharpen up in that area for sure.”

James O'Connor of the Wallabies runs the ball during the Bledisloe Cup match at Eden Park.

Curiously enough, the individual report card for the Wallabies wasn’t all that damning. The set pieces went reasonably well, some good, some bad, while new hooker Brandon Paenga-Amosa was busy and generally accurate. The handling, so good last week, was fairly deplorable. And the dart Jake Gordon made late in the game left a lot of people wondering what havoc Tate McDermott might have inflicted. And generally speaking, the Wallabies have to learn when to play and when to go to ground. They released far too much pressure yesterday with “Hail Mary” offloads.