The dust had barely settled on last weekend’s Nations Series than Ireland were made 14-point favourites by Paddy Power for their final game of the year against Australia next Saturday at the Aviva Stadium, handicap odds which must be unprecedented in the 36-game history of the fixture.
The home side’s favouritism presumably hardened on the back of Australia suffering a first-ever defeat by Italy in Florence last Saturday and overlooked Ireland’s stuttering victory over Fiji on the premise that Andy Farrell had made eight changes to the starting line-up and most of the heavy hitters will return this week.
There’s a terrible stigma for any Tier One side that loses to Italy. It’s the ultimate indignity. Yet the Wallabies’ 28-27 loss is arguably even less of a yardstick than events in the Aviva given Dave Rennie made 11 changes from the side which had lost by 30-29 against France in the Stade de France a week previously.
Rennie copped some flak, not least from Matt Giteau, who claimed it sent out a message of complacency to the Wallabies players. Yet in addition to the Reds, Waratahs and Brumbies each having played at least 15 Super Rugby Pacific games, next Saturday’s Test against Ireland is the 13th of 14 internationals scheduled for the Wallabies this season and the fourth of a gruelling five-match end-of-year tour.
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In steadfastly supporting the decision to rotate much of their 36-man squad, 35 of whom have now played in their three Tests on tour, forwards coach Dan McKellar made the point that Test rugby is draining both physically and mentally, and they needed to use this tour to delve into their depth chart.
Now, with a clean bill of health, Rennie is expected to restore the vast bulk of the refreshed front-liners, ie the entire pack which started in Paris including captain James Slipper, Michael Hooper, and the halfbacks Nic White and Bernard Foley et al.
The Wallabies would have ended France’s then ten-game winning sequence last Saturday week in front of a passionate Saturday night full house in the Stade de France were it not for the game-changing introduction of Mathieu Jalibert for a rusty Romain and Damian Penaud’s wonderful 76th finish from Jalibert’s floated pass when beating two men.
Last June the aforementioned McKellar publicly declared: “We’re trying to develop a mindset here of having the best maul in the world.” It’s not exactly a renowned Wallabies strength but their defensive maul was excellent against the big French pack and, what’s more, a strong Wallabies catch-and-drive laid the platform for the try out wide by fullback Jock Campbell in his first Test start.
They also scored a contender for try of the autumn in vintage Wallabies’ fashion with a length-of-the-field counter from turnover ball, when Campbell and flanker Jed Holloway combined to release the speedy Tom Wright up the left touchline for supporting centre Lalakai Foketi to finish from half-way.
Save for Penaud’s finish, France were indebted to their defence for their only other try and for several of Thomas Ramos’ six penalties. They won nine turnovers at the breakdown to none by the Wallabies.
Granted, the Wallabies were indebted to Blair Kinghorn missing a penalty with the last kick of the game in Murrayfield for their 16-15 win a week beforehand, but while Ben Donaldson missed a conversion with the last kick of the game in Florence, Italy would have been kicking themselves had they not seen out a famous win.
With Paolo Garbisi a late withdrawal, Tommaso Allan took over at outhalf and the Azzurri have rarely scored two more wonderfully conceived tries than those finished sharply by Ange Cappuozo, but Allan and Edoardo Padovani missed four penalties and a conversion.
The 16-9 penalty count against the Wallabies in Florence means they’ve conceded 42 penalties in three games. But it was refreshing, and in stark contrast to Rassie Erasmus, to hear McKellar say they would look in the mirror, while venturing that referee Brendon Pickerill had a really good game. Any chance this will catch on?
The high penalty counts are perhaps not unrelated to the Wallabies’ issues away from home. That one-point win in Murrayfield was of only two victories in their last nine away games and considering past deeds in this part of the world, they’ve had a surprisingly poor record in Europe on their end-of-year tours in recent times, winning two and losing nine of their last eleven going back to 2018, with their only other win being over Italy in 2018.
In winning just four of a dozen Tests this year, Australia have been strikingly incapable of backing up big performances. They won the opening Test against England but lost the series. They beat the Pumas 41-26 in Mendoza but two weeks later lost the return fixture 48-17 in San Juan.
They beat South Africa 25-17 in Adelaide but lost 24-8 a week later in Sydney. They were controversially robbed of a win over the All Blacks in Melbourne before, all too predictably, being thrashed in their Eden Park house of pain nine days later.
Rugby can be a funny old game, but these were swings of 46 points, 24 and 24 again against the same opponents back-to-back.
The defeat in the first Bledisloe Cup match in Melbourne was probably the toughest loss any team has had to take this year. Trailing 31-13 approaching the last quarter, the Wallabies scored three fine tries to draw level at 34-all before leading through a Nic White penalty with three minutes remaining.
Mathieu Raynal awarded Australia a turnover penalty close to their line on 78 minutes, 24 seconds. On 79 minutes and five seconds, that’s just 39 seconds later, and just as Bernard Foley was about to kick the penalty to touch, Raynal penalised him for time-wasting and awarded the All Blacks a five metre scrum, from which Jordie Barrett scored the winning try with the clock in the red.
It was beyond cruel. Yet these wildly inconsistent but wounded Wallabies could easily be coming to the Aviva with the scalps of both the All Blacks and France this year. They wouldn’t be 14-point underdogs then.
