

Years from now Wallabies supporters will still be taunted by a Hannibal Lecter-like voice in their heads: “You still wake up sometimes, don’t you, wake up in the dark, and hear the screaming of the Wallabies?” Indeed, the Wallabies and their supporters will need an exorcist to rid themselves of their demons after Saturday night’s dismembering at the hands of the All Blacks.

That terrifying six-tries-to-two monstering will linger for an age in Australian rugby. The Bledisloe Cup, which many including this column gave the Wallabies a fighting chance of reclaiming, has never looked so out of reach as it does now. The All Blacks didn’t just answer the question of whether they were a great team in decline; they doused the exam paper in petrol, set it alight and then proceeded to flambé the Wallabies over 80 excruciatingly painful minutes.

How did it all go so wrong for Australia, from a 12-12 draw in Sydney last week to the mother of all hidings in Auckland one week later? The All Blacks, of course, played superbly and lifted several notches and then some. And there’s no room for doubt with a 51-20 scoreline; the All Blacks are clearly the best rugby team on the planet and won’t be surrendering that status to anyone anytime soon, least of all to the Wallabies. Talk of decline and the rest of the world catching up has now been put in perspective; the All Blacks were underdone in preparation during the June internationals against England, and last week’s draw was a one-off dud performance. They’ve hit their strides now.

And yet, the thing that will irk the Wallabies coach, Ewen McKenzie, more than the massive margin of defeat is that the All Blacks didn’t do anything spectacular on Saturday night. There were no big moments of match-defining brilliant plays; rather, it was victory forged on a superbly drilled team flawlessly executing the basics of rugby – catch, pass, kick, and hardness in the tackle and over the ball. As good as the All Blacks were (and to be clear, no team would have beaten them on Saturday), there’s a lingering question about the opposition – namely, where were they? The Wallabies, it seems, simply didn’t show up.



The way the teams handled their respective sin-binnings in the first half was telling (Richie McCaw first, followed by Rob Simmons almost immediately on McCaw’s reintroduction). The All Blacks worked the clock expertly, slowing down play to chew up the minutes until the great man’s return. In stark contrast, the Wallabies lost the plot with Simmons in the naughty chair. A penalty try against a seven-man scrum and an All Black counter-attack off a promising Wallabies attack from Israel Folau, and just like that the All Blacks had bolted, from 9-6 to 23-6. Yet, the All Blacks didn’t do anything outrageous with Simmons in the bin; they simply did the basics exceedingly well and capitalised on Wallaby handling errors. The Wallabies, meanwhile, were clueless against 14 All Blacks, just like they were when faced with the same scenario in Sydney last week.

To lose a Bledisloe Cup match to an All Black side playing the big moments brilliantly is tolerable (it’s happened so many times down the years with Dan Carter, Richie McCaw, Ma’a Nonu, Ben Smith, Israel Dagg, Cory Jane, Andrew Mehrtens, Jonah Lomu and the like), but to get so comprehensively wiped off the park by nothing more than masterful execution of simple basics from jerseys No1 to 23 presents the sobering reality that the Wallabies, while they may have the individual talent to win, are at heart a collectively weak outfit all too ready to fold when the opposition dominates the micro-contests at the tackle and over the ball. The Pumas and Springboks will be licking their lips.

Bledisloe II talking points

Facebook Twitter Pinterest It looks like this scene could be repeated for a few years to come. Photograph: Phil Walter/Getty Images

1) Do the Wallabies need a shrink? It’s a serious question. There’s very little separating international teams’ preparation methods and the physical metrics of Test rugby players these days. Yet the All Blacks have kept their noses some distance in front of the pack, and this despite regularly losing world class players like Rene Ranger, Jerome Kaino (for a brief time), Richard Kahui and many others to big money deals in France and Japan. The All Blacks keep winning regardless. One constant in the Graham Henry/Steve Hansen era has been Gilbert Enoka, the mental skills coach dubbed the brain behind the All Blacks. NZ players have long credited Enoka’s methods in getting them up for big performances. And the All Blacks’ mental turnaround from Sydney was dramatic and there for all to see at Eden Park. The Australian mind shift was equally marked and visible, but in reverse. They looked like extras on the set of a Terry Gilliam movie. Perhaps it’s time for the Australian Rugby Union to look at hiring someone like Enoka in a full-time role.

2) Mental foibles aside, the Wallabies still look a couple of knuckleheads short of being a genuine force in the forwards. Rob Simmons and Sam Carter are decent enough locks, good work rates and solid at line-out time etc. But they’re not going to bully anyone the way All Black lock Brodie Rettalick does at 6ft 8in, 121 kg, and with attitude to match. What the Wallabies wouldn’t give for a couple of no-nonsense hardmen like, say, a Brad Thorn, or a Jerry Collins or Bakkies Botha. It’s a shame the ARU allowed the Western Force’s Hugh McMeniman to head off to Japan. He fits the bill perfectly. Indeed, they don’t call McMeniman ‘madness’ for nothing. Wycliff Palu was disappointing.

3) McCaw on his last legs? Pull the other one. There are no more superlatives to describe the All Blacks captain. At 33, he remains an ageless warrior for the All Black cause; a living legend who, when he finally retires, will be revered alongside Sir Edmund Hillary and Phar Lap as the greatest of all New Zealanders. We may never see his like again.