Wales left with plenty to ponder
Wales 12
Australia 33
Wales v Australia. Photo: Getty Images
Monday November 30 2009
Australia's coach, Robbie Deans, did his best Edith Piaf impression on Saturday night. "Non, je ne regrette rien," was the defiant gist of his comments on missing out on a Grand Slam in Australia's first tilt since 1984.
He was talking tosh. Australia missed a golden opportunity. They were good enough to achieve the clean sweep and Saturday's demolition of Wales was ample evidence.
The 20-20 draw against Ireland and 9-8 defeat against Scotland will rankle for aeons. In Dublin, Ireland were all but beaten when prop John Hayes collapsed a late scrum, but went unpunished. Cue some Brian O'Driscoll magic and a snatched share of the spoils. Quite how they succumbed to Scotland will remain one of rugby's great mysteries.
Australia were stunning on Saturday. Wales assistant coach Shaun Edwards described their defence as "magnificent." So was the remainder of their play in the first quarter. Three sublime tries and the game was over.
Their scrum was dominant, Will Genia probed incessantly at scrum-half, Matt Giteau pulled nonchalant strings outside and David Pocock thoroughly outplayed Martyn Williams.
Wales were awful. Both Edwards and head coach Warren Gatland described it as their worst days with Wales.
"Embarrassed," was replacement Jonathan Thomas' after-match pronouncement. "It is something we can't allow to happen again," he said. "We lost a lot of 50-50s in the air, we lost a lot of contact situations on the floor. We lost the battle, full stop."
Again there was no try. Wales 'created' just one during the autumn; from a cross-field kick against 14-man Samoa. Three others came in gifts from Argentina. Once on Saturday they went through 18 phases in Australia's 22 and still could not score. There clearly is a problem. (© Daily Telegraph, London)
WALES -- J Hook; L Halfpenny (A Bishop 27), J Roberts, J Davies, S Williams (T James 7); S Jones, D Peel (M Roberts 71); G Jenkins (capt), M Rees (H Bennett 30), P James (D Jones 48), AW Jones, L Charteris (J Thomas 54), D Lydiate (S Warburton 48), A Powell (Lydiate 60), M Williams
AUSTRALIA -- A Ashley-Cooper; P Hynes (J O'Connor 62), D Ioane, Q Cooper, D Mitchell (K Beale 70); M Giteau, W Genia (L Burgess 79); B Robinson, S Moore (T Polota-Nau 55), B Alexander (M Dunning 70), J Horwill, D Mumm, R Elsom (capt), W Palu (M Chisholm 70), D Pocock (G Smith 40).
Ref -- W Barnes (England).
- Steve James
Irish Independent
