The Wallabies have a $5 million weapon. They barely used him and lost again

Detailed summary

The Wallabies nearly pulled off a miracle in Scotland, but they are still wasting their greatest talent. So why am I backing them to beat Wales?

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Who then could defend the honour of Southern Hemisphere rugby, against the haughty and newly strutting northerners? That would be our blokes.

After a weekend when Wales had beaten the All Blacks for the first time in 73 years and France had bested the Boks in a thriller, it was left to the Wallabies to try and restore order against the flower of Scotland at a nearly sold-out Murrayfield in wet and misty Edinburgh.

From the first there was far more penetration from the men in green and gold courtesy of Carter Gordon being returned from injury at fly-half, and Rob Valentini being restored to the back-row. Gordon’s darts unleashed his outside backs just often enough that there was hope. Valentini’s endless go-forward allowed set up his own pack to match him in kind, and all of Fraser McReight, Harry Wilson and Josh Canham got through a mountain of work, as did prop Alan Alaalatoa who was outstanding in defence.

Whatever, else, the Wallabies were competing against a team that had seriously tested the All Blacks the week before. Two Scotland tries in the first half were matched by a beauty from Wallaby winger Harry Potter, and there would have been another to our hooker Billy Pollard bar his great effort being called back for a technical infringement at the lineout. Down 12-5 at the break, it was time to assess.

Look, at least we were going far better than we were in the last three Tests against the All Blacks and England, where a certain round-heeled quality to our defence had seen the Wallabies concede over 40 points each Test. But not this time. Those two Scottish tries notwithstanding, our defence was much stronger than it had been.

Meantime, their aerial game was doing us damage. Time and again they were putting it high and retrieving it, putting such pressure on us that fifteen minutes into the second half, Scotland had 63 per cent territorial domination over all.

Playing at…

Opening of the article, excerpted from Brisbane Times. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.