If Test rugby can wow Eddie McGuire Wallabies must be doing something right

July 14, 2021 â€" 7.45pm

The good thing about the Wallaby Test in Melbourne on Tuesday night?

. . .

. . .

. . .

Shhhhh. I am thinking!

OK, I have got a few.

It took place. Under current circumstances, just to have an international rugby team on site, and playing before a crowd, is a big deal. The whole thing could so easily have fallen apart in the COVID crisis, but not only did it go off without a hitch in Melbourne, both teams quietly returned to their hotels, breached no bubbles and there was no police or anything! No one even had to hide under the bed, or charge out the back door. (Leaguies â€" it is possible. Look it up.)

It has set up things nicely for Saturday night’s decider in Brissie at Suncorp. Not for we of the Union these dead rubbers so beloved of the Origin mob. And unlike league, we don’t like 60-point drubbings either. Both Tests in the series so far came down to the very last second. The Wallabies won the first Test by two points, the French the second by two points. Could things be more perfectly primed to see the Wallabies get up in a thriller on Saturday?

Wallaby skipper Michael Hooper again played very well, as did several other players. Standouts for me were Marika Koroibete, who was as fabulous as ever on the wing, and Taniela Tupou, the amazing prop who usually hits the headlines for his death-defying charges but on Tuesday threw the perfectly timed, minutely calibrated harbour-bridge pass that put halfback Jake Gordon over in the corner. As a prop! Matt Philip, the second-rower, also got through a mountain of work.

The understrength Les Bleus defeated the Wallabies at the death in Melbourne.Credit:Getty

The game actually did help spread the rugby gospel to Melbourne. Yes, they already have the Rebels, but there is nothing like a Test match to garner interest, and in the middle of Tuesday night’s telecast, I got a text from Eddie McGuire, who was in attendance, enthusing: “It’s a great gladiatorial game. I love the tradition and the internationalism. Aust v France in Melb! Tribal suburbanism in AFL but with an international component. It was wonderful to drive down the road and see international sport on a Tuesday night! And even better our growing Islander community have a game they know and love and hopefully feel pride in playing locally. Good on all measures. And a ripping boutique stadium to watch it from. Loved it.”

Get it? Getting Eddie McGuire to enthuse about watching rugby in Melbourne is like getting Nick Politis or Wayne Bennett to express how much they love watching Aussie rules in Sydney. The latter hasn’t happened yet, but rugby is making an impact in the Victorian capital.

Lukhan Salakaia-Loto wins a lineout for the Wallabies on a night where the French pinched a few at crucial times.Credit:Getty

It rated well. The CEO of Nine (which owns this masthead), Mike Sneesby â€" LOVE THAT MAN! â€" has already revealed in the public domain that the streaming service Stan alone did an audience of over 200,000 for the First Test, and I am reliably informed the Second Test did even more than that. On Channel Nine free-to-air it peaked at 650,000, a handsome turnout. It sets it up for an even bigger turn-out next Saturday night. Whatever else is going on, the fact that the pay masters for rugby are getting a return on their investment in the game means that the lifeblood will keep flowing.

Marika Koroibete was a standout for the Wallabies.Credit:AP

As to the bad things, the list is long. But it surely must start with the fact our blokes lost to a French side that was far from full strength, the first time the French have won on our shores in 31 years. (And as a member of that side who lost the Third Test in 1990 in Sydney, after we had secured the series, allow me to say we wuz robbed, ROBBED, I tell you!) Right now, if the Wallabies played against the All Blacks, the fear has to be that the final score would look like a cricket match where we didn’t get to bat.

Other things.

We don’t appear to have much of a kicking game. At the game’s conclusion, we were all over the French for possession and territory, while they tripled us in metres gained in kicks downfield. As I said after the First Test, as much as we all love the running game, having a bloke who can reef it a long way downfield when trouble looms is no small thing and can not only turn an entire match â€" on Tuesday night it did exactly that, for the French. In fact, their fullback Melvyn Jaminet not only reefed it downfield, but also nailed no fewer than seven penalty goals and a conversion to register 23 points for the match. If he was on sale at Bunnings, we’d buy five of him, wouldn’t we?

Our scrum is still not strong enough. With a minute to go in that match, with the goodies on track to record a second fabulous victory, we had a put-in to our scrum, 40 metres out. The French shoved so effectively our scrum disintegrated, allowing them to kick the winning goal. One way or another, we cannot even think of prospering internationally if we don’t have the foundation stone of a scrum capable of winning our ball 99 times out of 100.

Our backs lack penetration, yes? With all the possession we had, you’d think we might have crossed the stripe five times instead of twice from broken play. A lot of it felt like throwing a tennis ball at a brick wall. The harder they hurled themselves, the harder the French tackled. Mostly our forwards got them plenty of pill, but the backs just couldn’t crack them.

In sum? In sum, this was not a match to put in a bottle and take out in 20 years. It was not even a step upwards on the lower rung of a ladder. It was at best, a relatively small step on the path back from the abyss. No “Hip, hip, hurrah!” for that. Just a small rah! rah! and let’s hope for a great result on Saturday night before regrouping.

Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.

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