First off I witnessed the supreme choking of the Kangaroos against the mighty NZ Kiwis in League. True, not my first game of choice but a great game anyway. Now they have successfully blown the Four Nations as well as the heart stopping loss in the World Cup a couple of years ago. The Aussies should have won but failed, they are now the Chokers from Down Under.
Speaking of "should have won", those Wallabies should have won too if you read any of the press in Australia from their Hong Kong win. It was as if the Wallabies had won a world cup! The truth is that they won a single game against a bored All Blacks side sick of playing the Wallabies in a dead rubber contest. I guess we had to throw them a bone. The English team looked really good and they are adapting to the new rules. Perhaps the biggest mistake Australia made was to assume that England would play dour set piece rugby. When they didn't and ran the ball back at the Aussies they opened up some pretty big holes. But then the Aussies had bugger all possession because their boys up front where somewhere else - probably at church praying for something, anything, to improve their woeful performance. And the Wallabies are in serious trouble with their kickers. In RWC you cannot give away 11 points of missed kicks in any game of the finals series. Still, the Wallabies, will pick themselves up and post a glorious 50+ score against the Italians and all will be forgotten by the cheer squad Aussie press.
Then I watched the Mighty All Blacks play Scotland. What an impressive display of rugby power. The Scots were not as bad as the scoreboard suggested with gritty defense and some good set piece play. However, they had nothing to fire at the All Blacks.....and then there was SBW. To compare him to the great Jonah Lomu would be premature but watching him take in two defenders and still offload reminds me of the two seasons it took for the rest of the world to learn how to contain Jonah. How long until they figure out how to tackle Sonny Bill without him releasing? Certainly it will take two players from opposite directions or perhaps three. But unlike Jonah he's in the mid field which will open up gaps inside and out wide. But it wasn't just Sonny Bill, Smith was excellent as usual and then there was Gear on the wing. Why the hell is Rockocko even on the tour when we have such talent as this? The Scottish game put the world on notice that the All Black back line will be impossible to contain next year.
