History was there for the taking – until Wallabies bombed under a high-ball blitz

“Let that be a lesson to world rugby,” I would exult, with echoes of Vitas Gerulaitis, “NO-ONE beats the Wallabies at the one ground 41 years in a row!

Or maybe ...

“Anyone can have a bad four decades, but that’s where the Wallabies really draw the line.”

It all turned, see, on the fact that our blokes had not won against the All Backs at Auckland’s Eden Park since 1986, and for the first part of this Bledisloe Cup Test match it really looked as if – hold my coat, Captain Cook – history was at hand.

The Wallabies swept all before them. They carved them up in the backs, and stopped the hosts’ attack cold. They picked them off in the lineouts. The green and gold so dominated territory and possession that when our fullback Tom Wright sliced the defence wide open just seven minutes in to score, I was morally certain that for the next 40 years, I’d be able to boast: “I was there the night it all turned around, the beginning of the Green and Golden Age, after decades of All Blackness!”

But then those All Black boogers struck back, as they are ever wont to do, and one thing in particular did us real damage.

The All Blacks kept putting up the high ball, and not only did none of the Wallabies appear to even call for it, many of them they didn’t even look particularly interested in claiming it.

It is a mystery to this despondent correspondent how a team so outstanding at so many other things continues to get this most basic of all required skills wrong. It is particularly confusing when Max Jorgensen and Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii had been so great at it a fortnight ago against the Springboks.

For the damage done by not swallowing whole the pills put up towards them was considerable, as the All Blacks quickly scored two converted tries and a penalty to lead 17-7. At least the fact our captain Harry Wilson restored a little order with a try just before halftime allowed us to hope, with the All Baddies only holding a 17-14 lead at the break.

Who would come out for the Wallabies in the second half? The team which dominated the first ten minutes, or the one that all but disappeared for the middle 20?

At first, it looked it would be the former as, from the kick-off, Wright and Max Jorgensen combined to break through and we ended up with a line-out right on their line. The Promised Land was right there, just waiting for a Wallaby forward to take up his rightful position – planting the ball down for defence on a patch of grass that grows green from the blood, sweat and tears of his 40 forebears.

Alas, that attack was snuffed out by a penalty and much of the rest went back to an aerial battle where we appeared to have a distinct lack of Spitfires, and Jerry was everywhere at once! Look, it was not simply that the All Blacks continued to put the ball up and then recover it, it was than when we put the ball up, we had no one of note rushing through to put a tenth of the pressure on them that had been put on us.

The territory this delivered to the All Blacks was more than enough for them to plant their flag four more times behind our goal line in the next 35 minutes, taking the lead out to 43-14 as the match started to ebb.

In that time, Wilson, Rob Valetini and Fraser McReight continued to impress, as did Jorgensen and Wright for at least knocking on the All Back door. But our side needed a whole lot more than mere impressions. It needed to defuse their bombs and blow up some our own, but could manage neither feat, until ...

Until, wouldn’t you know it? With five minutes to go, at long bloody last, Suaalii did what we wanted him to do – what he should be asked to do every kick-off – run through, leap high and get us the bloody ball! The result? A Wallaby TRY!

Seriously. It was that simple an equation. When they won the aerial battles, they scored. When we did, we scored. We just won bugger-all of those aerial battles. Their final try, with seconds on the clock, to take it to 50-19 just upped the agony.

All up, as disappointing as it was, at least it is bloody clear what training should consist of this week. Tell ’em, coach Les Kiss:

“At least until Marky Mark gets here in a few weeks to take the marks, we need all of you, every day, all day, without fail, to practice the bloody high ball – otherwise we are wasting our time. And next week, the first bastard that calls out ‘YOURS!’ instead of ‘MINE!’ or makes no call at all, will be pulled from the field. We simply cannot compete without that.”

And they really can’t. Most other parts of our game are seriously solid. That part is seriously shithouse. You heard me. And I know I shouldn’t say a bad word in a family newspaper. But kids, on this occasion, no other word will do.

Onwards to next week, at Homebush. Fix the high ball. Play ball!

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