Wallabies need to forget the trash talking and concentrate on walking the walk

No matter how coach Dave Rennie sugar-coats it, the Wallabies talked trash before the second Bledisloe, and got taught a lesson.

Wallabies coach Dave Rennie borrowed his best line from an NFL legend

In the film The Matrix, arguably the greatest science fiction film of all time, Laurence Fishburne’s character, Morpheus, says: “Knowing the path and walking the path are two different things”.

It’s a twist on the age-old saying that if you are going to talk the talk, then you had better be able to walk the walk.

It doesn’t matter how Wallabies coach Dave Rennie wants to sugar-coat it, the Wallabies talked trash before the second Bledisloe Cup Test and they got taught a big lesson.

The members of Rugby Australia’s media machine need to wind their collected necks in.

Clearly, we all want the Wallabies to win, but when they scrape past a second-string French team and score some tries at the back end of the first Bledisloe Cup Test match, when

the result was already decided, it’s hardly time to start beating your chest.

My advice to Rennie and captain Michael Hooper is this: forget talking smack and focus on delivering an 80-minute performance. Give Australians a team they can be proud of.

The fact is, the record loss of 57-22 to New Zealand is the worst score in 118 years.

The All Blacks have never posted so many points against us, ever.

The leaders of our performance program must be held to account.

Director of rugby Scott Johnson’s contract is up at the end of the season. I’m tired of indicating that this is a man in charge of high-performance when there is none. There is no way he can be retained.

Wallabies skipper Michael Hooper at Eden Park on Saturday. Picture: Getty Images

Beware the director of rugby who tries to sit above the coach, hoping to escape the responsibility that comes with the position.

Remember, Johnson threw former coach Michael Cheika under the bus so he could bring in Rennie.

Rennie and Johnson are represented by the same Kiwi sports management group, Esportif.

Rennie might be a nice fella, but he had zero international coaching experience and it’s apparent that he’s lost at this level.

The Wallaby performance in the second Test against New Zealand resembled that of Fiji in the warm-up Tests a month or so ago.

Fiji were thrown together on a shoestring budget and spent two weeks in camp as they prepared for their two Tests against the All Blacks.

The Fijian players earned $200 a day and that’s it. No central contracts and no match payments. They were each paid $1400 to play two Tests against New Zealand.

Our Wallabies chew up about $20 million in central contract money, plus they usually receive match payments of around $12,000 a Test, on top of their contract payment, on top of

first-class hotel accommodation and luxury training camps.

We are sinking enormous resources into a team and the performances and results are not there.

Remember, Fiji were beaten 57-33 and 60-13 in their two Tests against the All Blacks this year. The scores resemble our second Test score and we should acknowledge that, with 20 minutes to go in Bledisloe I, we were staring down the barrel of another humiliating 50-point loss.

Dave Rennie is interviewed after losing The Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies. Picture: Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images

Any international coach worth his salt understands that defences win Test matches.

We conceded eight tries in the second Bledisloe Cup Test. Forget the two intercept tries, what about the other six? What the hell are the Wallabies doing at training to improve

their defence?

Matt Taylor is the defence coach. He was brought in by Scott Johnson. He, too, is represented by Esportif.

It was 21-15 at half time and we were in the fight. What was said at half time? We came out in the second half and lost it 36-7.

The statistics tell us we had 52 per cent of possession and spent 66 per cent of the match in New Zealand’s half.

This suggests we don’t know how to use the ball; nor, it seems, do we know how to defend it.

Forget the rubbish that is being sprouted by the spin doctors. This is not a particularly young Wallaby team. The average age of the team is about 25. In 1986, the average age of my Wallaby side was about 22.

Test match rugby is about results. Why is the world class prop Taniela Tupou, as I have asked

many times, wheeled out with 20 minutes to go when the match is over?

Tupou should start and finish at tight head, end of story.

In the 70s and 80s, there was an NFL coach by the name of Oail “Bum” Phillips. Phillips coached the Houston Oilers and the New Orleans Saints.

When Rennie chirped up with the statement that, “We don’t fear the All Blacks, we respect them”, he was using the words made famous in coaching by Phillips.

Phillips has passed now, but he is remembered for many sporting quotes. The next one will give Rennie food for thought: “There are two types of coaches – those who have been sacked and those who are going to be sacked.”

As the Wallabies review the most humiliating Bledisloe Cup loss in the history of our game, let’s hope they come up with a defensive strategy that will hold the All Blacks to around

20 points in the “dead rubber”, Bledisloe III.

It might be time to dust off the 2019 Rugby World Cup semi-final video of England v New Zealand. In that match, the Poms found a way to hold the All Blacks to seven points; England won 19-7.

Whatever it takes, we need to do it in Perth for the third Bledisloe Test.

Bring back Samu Kerevi, Quade Cooper and Matt To’omua in the midfield. Start with Taniela Tupou, then bring back Izack Rodda and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto in the second row.

If we pick the right team and play the right tactics, we can beat the All Blacks. But if we talk nonsense and focus on spin rather than strategy, we can’t expect a different result.

And on that issue, the difference between the two teams is not territory or possession.

The difference is simply how we use the football.

We are still addicted to pick and drive. The forwards work overtime in every Test match, but it gets us nowhere.

The only way you can threaten the defence is to use the football, sensibly and responsibly.

But if you don’t practice playing that way, it will never happen on match day.

Remember the words of Morpheus: “Knowing the path and walking

the path are two different things.”

It’s time Rennie set the Wallabies on the right path and it’s time the team walked the talk.

As a postscript, reader Simon summed up a mountain of correspondence from last week’s article: “Hear, hear, Alan. Can you please continue exposing the whistleblowers as much as possible? One day the penny may drop that their ‘over the top’ interference is why the game is dying.”

But who is listening?