Wallabies defensive wall stops faltering All Blacks

The All Blacks made too many errors and the Wallabies made the most of their chances, defeating New Zealand by 20-15 in Melbourne, putting one hand on the Bledisloe Cup and blowing the Tri-Nations wide open.

Two second half tries and tenacious defence vaulted the Wallabies to victory, while the All Blacks dropped too much ball and gave away too many penalties. The perceived weakness in the New Zealand midfield defence was not evident until the 71st minute when Australian captain Stirling Mortlock powered through a poor tackle attempt by stand-in centre Luke McAlister, and set up replacement Scott Staniforth for the match winning try.

The All Blacks put their slow starts of earlier this season to rest with a dominating start to the game, controlling virtually all of the possession for the opening four minutes before prop Tony Woodcock crashed over for his first ever test try. Dan Carter kicked the conversion, giving the All Blacks the perfect start.

Once the Wallabies were able to get their hands on the ball, they were able to move it around well but were unable to break the All Blacks’ defensive line. Despite being hot on attack for a number of phases, Australia were only able to come away with a Mortlock penalty after 14 minutes, following a Rico Gear error.

Gear made up for his error almost immediately, evading many tacklers on a run up the right flank which led to a penalty goal by Carter. Mortlock would reply four minutes later.

Consistent All Blacks’ pressure led to their second try as they shifted the ball wide to the left flank, then back to the right where McAlister broke a tackle and set up Gear to score in the corner.

The Wallabies were able to gain an edge in the early lineouts, but excellent work from a returning Chris Jack saw the All Blacks achieve parity. The much anticipated clash between All Black Carl Hayman and Wallaby Matt Dunning in the scrums came to very little as the All Blacks asserted their dominance at scrum time, even claiming a rare tighthead.

As the scrums further disintegrated Dunning became desperate and gave away a number of free kicks and penalties, despite getting help from halfback George Greegan delaying the feed whenever Dunning was under pressure.

The second half was a titanic struggle played near the halfway line with both teams defending ferociously. New Zealand made a number of substitutions after just five minutes of the second half, perhaps due to jet lag after the team had flown in from South Africa earlier in the week.

The turning point of the match came at the 60 minute mark when referee Marius Jonker made the bizarre decision to yellow card Hayman after the All Blacks had given away too many penalties near their own line, despite the fact that Hayman’s transgression was made within a few metres of halfway.

The Wallabies struck almost immediately, pinning New Zealand on their goal line, culminating in winger Adam Ashley-Cooper powering through three weak tackle attempts to score in the left corner.

Hayman’s return from the sin bin saw another round of mass substitutions as the All Blacks emptied their bench, but they were unable to prevent the Staniforth winner.

New Zealand showed they still have a great deal of work to do before the World Cup, both with their skills and tactics. The back-line which was so explosive against South Africa last weekend seemed to run out of ideas in the second half, rarely threatening to break the Australian defence.

The Wallabies showed a great deal of character in this match, not only holding the All Blacks scoreless for the second half, but also negating the disadvantage they suffered in the scrum for most of the match. A win next weekend against the Springboks will send Australia to the top of the points table in the Tri-Nations.

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The Wallabies defensive wall stops faltering All Blacks by Hamish McBrearty, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.