THE toheroa soup was off and the kiwi fruit had blemishes as the All Blacks monstered the Wallabies 39-10 at Eden Park on Saturday night, New Zealand's biggest winning margin over Australia since the 50-21 victory at Sydney in 2003 when the NZ assistant coach was a certain Robbie Deans.
So what are the lessons for the Wallabies from their expulsion from the garden of Eden Park? First, as an old-time Wallaby said to me at the weekend, there must never be a repeat of the "double-midget" policy of starting George Smith and Phil Waugh. The Wallabies, with only two line-out jumpers, were cleaned out, losing eight of their 24 throws. The All Blacks, often shaky in the line-outs, lost only one throw and scored a try directly from a clean take and transfer at the top of his jump by Ali Williams.
Waugh came into the pack only because Rocky Elsom was out injured. Robbie Deans was tempted, a bit like Adam with the forbidden apple, to play two "fetchers", as the South Africans call the open-side breakaway. The tactic was intended to nullify Richie McCaw's mastery at the breakdown by forcing him to play against two breakdown experts.
The problem with this tactic is that the "through-the-gate" law requires players to come into rucks from behind the tackler and tackled player. This means that only the tackler and the first player on either side coming into the ruck can get their hands on the ball. This nullifies the usefulness of two fetchers, provided the referee insists (as he should) on the "through-the-gate" requirement. Mark Lawrence did just that. The Wallabies were frequently penalised for trying to seal off the ruck ball illegally and for coming in from the side.
The statistics reveal McCaw's dominance at the breakdown. The Wallabies had 27 turnovers, the All Blacks had 14. Nine of the Wallabies' turnovers were at rucks and mauls, compared with only three for the All Blacks. McCaw made 15 tackles, the most in the match, and Rodney So'oialo, playing in his correct position at No.8, made 13. The highest Wallabies tackle count was made by Wycliff Palu and Matt Giteau, who both made 13. No wonder Giteau's attacking play was limited. The notable omissions from the leading tacklers in the Test were Smith and Waugh.
With their line-out under pressure and with them not winning the ball on the ground, the Wallabies also had to contend with a scrum that could not hold the All Blacks. Again referee Lawrence was tougher on the Wallabies, notably Al Baxter, than the referee in Sydney had been. The television replays showed that Lawrence was right, too. On one scrum, for instance, when Channel Seven's Dan Crowley tried to defend Baxter for failing to bind properly and then dropping the scrum, Gordon Bray, the former referee from North Sydney, pointed out that Baxter was the prop on the ground, not his opponent, Tony Woodcock.
The All Blacks took their scrum dominance into the rucks and mauls with some abrasive counter-rucking that slowed the Wallabies' ball and put halfback Luke Burgess under intense pressure when he was trying to clear the ball. To my mind, the All Blacks selectors went back to the England game plan at Marseille in the quarter-final of the 2007 Rugby World Cup. England, with Andy Sheridan playing the Woodcock role, destroyed the Wallabies in the scrum and continued the smash-and-grab tactics with vicious counter-rucking in the rucks and mauls.
The way things go in coaching is that if a team shows it is vulnerable to certain tactics, every other team adopts these tactics against them. We can expect the All Blacks and the Springboks to play in the Eden Park style, therefore, for the rest of the Tri Nations tournament. What will Deans's response be? There may be some comfort in the fact that the 50-21 loss in 2003 was followed later by a memorable Wallabies victory over the All Blacks in the semi-final of the 2003 World Cup.
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