The Wallabies have the talent. But something is going badly wrong

Things were grim, and on the rim.

Of the abyss.

At 19-3 down to England, with a minute to go in the first half and England pressing the Wallabies’ line, there was every chance the visiting team in gold at Twickenham would go to the break broken, and down 26-3.

At this point a 50-point drubbing seemed in the offing. And now it happens.

Defending out on the right wing, Max Jorgensen took his chances and the England back-line ball all in one, snatching the looping pass from the skies to run away 70 metres for the intercept try and bring it back to 19-10.

At this point we knew Australia was saved . . . and we were wrong.

For when England scored again in the first two minutes of the second half, to go to a 26-10 lead, it was time to assess just what was going wrong. But as this is a column, not a novel, we’ll have to go to the low-lights only.

The England forward pack made ground with every charge, with our own blokes struggling to shut them down.

The English back-line was slick, and in the ebb and flow between them and our own three-quarter line surging against each other, the men in white seemed to habitually move the advantage line at least two metres forward with every surge, which all added up.

On our side, balls were perpetually spilled in crucial positions.

Penalties were less being conceded than given freely – at one point five of them in a row. Wallaby prop Angus Bell, who was as good as ever in breaking the line, became the first international player to spend ten minutes in the bin for a hip-drop tackle under the new rules forbidding them. England scored two tries in his absence.

Every time the Wallabies got close to the England line in the first 50 minutes – by which I mean, twice – basic errors were made. Balls not being put in straight into the line-out at this level is as unforgivable as throwing awry passes just when the English line was at last starting to crack. Against that, the home side were ruthlessly professional, giving the visitors next to nothing. In front of a sold-out 80,000+ crowd, they just kept piling on the pressure and when they went to a 38-10 lead courtesy of the blonde light-houser English back-rower Henry Pollock – rushed on in the second half as an emergency winger – scoring two successive tries, it was starting to look like a complete humiliation was in the offing again.

Yes, Australia jagged two tries back through Jeremy Williams and Filipo Daugunu to close to 38-22, which showed some fight, but it was all a little beside the point as the game was long gone already, and a final English try to finish at 45-22 was a fair reflection of the match.

Just what happened to the magnificent Wallaby side that beat South Africa in Perth two months ago is not obvious. This loss to England after two successive drubbings at the hands of the All Blacks is more than disappointing after our team had gone six matches without a loss over August and September.

On the upside of a down match, Wallaby skipper Harry Wilson got through a mountain of work, as did Fraser McReight and Josh Canham. Meanwhile, in the centres, Len Ikitau was useful and Jorgensen was dangerous when he got the ball, which was, alas, not enough.

Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii was good in the air and twice pulled it out of the skies on a Wallaby kick to put Australia on the attack. “His-name-is-Su” might have done it another three times, bar for the fact our kick-offs were so often just too long. Why on earth – when Suaalii is dangerous in the air at 25 metres from a standing start – would we just about always kick it 30 metres? Give the bloke a chance! It is such a basic, endlessly repeated error, it takes my breath away. It was at this very ground two years ago that Suaalii demonstrated that he is all but unstoppable from short kick-offs, and yet we’ve barely seen him given those opportunities since.

All up, it was a very disappointing start to the Spring tour, but at least not the absolute drubbing it might have been – just an average drubbing, which is little enough to hold onto.

From here the Wallabies head north to take on Scotland at Murrayfield. Coach Les Kiss will have to add Rob Valetini to the starting line-up. The penetrating back-rower made an immediate impact when he came off the bench in the second half, and it is a mystery why he was not there from the first. The other one who must be added is Carter Gordon, who right now is in his usual position – coming back from injury.

Despite Gordon’s seeming fragility at five-eighth, our team needs a joker in the deck, if not the pack, and he’s it. In those times he has played for the Wallabies, he’s always been able to unleash the backline, and that is what we desperately need right now – someone who can act as a catalyst to liberate the talent that’s there.

We are a year out from a home World Cup. We know we have some excellent pieces to put together into the jigsaw puzzle of the team that will contest it, but right now the picture is so messy it’s more Picasso than Tom Roberts. I still think there’s a masterpiece in there somewhere – for we really have seen glimpses of it this season – but we’re a long way from it right now.

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