London: Star prop Angus Bell says the Wallabies’ defensive meltdown against the All Blacks was down to effort, not structure, and said they’ve made changes based on painful lessons from the one-sided Bledisloe series defeat.
The Wallabies take on England at Twickenham on Monday morning (AEDT) in the first outing since they were thumped by the All Blacks in Auckland and Sydney by a combined scoreline of 93-40.
Up against a rampant Kiwi attack, the Wallabies missed 66 tackles in 160 minutes and conceded 13 tries, raising questions about their defensive set-up.
Australia’s new assistant coach, Scott McLeod, made changes to the Wallabies’ defence after taking over as part of Les Kiss’ team in August, and all seemed well during the subsequent five-game unbeaten streak. But then the wheels came off against New Zealand.
Bell said there was no issue with the Wallabies’ defensive structures, however, and that shipping 93 points was more due to their inability to slow the Kiwis’ up-tempo attack.
“There was never any questions about our defensive systems,” Bell said. “‘Stormy’ [McLeod] has been great for us, and we’ve shown how good our defence can be on our line and throughout a game. I’d say it was down to effort areas, me included.
“We needed to be better, we needed to slow the ball, we needed to create havoc at the breakdown—we just didn’t.
“They’re classy players: Cam Roigard, Damian McKenzie, Beauden Barrett just flying around the field with lightning-quick ball, it’s just not a pretty picture. So any team that doesn’t do that to the All Blacks, it’s very hard to defend.
“So it doesn’t matter really about system, it was about how can we slow the ball down. I feel like we got that in the second half of the second Test; we were able to slow their ball down, make the ruck a bit more of a problem for them, and then get on the front foot when we had the ball.
“So we did fix it within the game; we’ve just got to make sure we do it for 80 minutes. And that’s what we’re aiming to do this weekend against England: put forward a holistic performance that goes across the 80 minutes like we did a couple of years ago.”
The Wallabies’ win at Twickenham in 2024 is remembered for Max Jorgensen’s last-gasp try, and the skilful Len Ikitau flick that laid it on. But the grittiness of the Wallabies’ performance that day is often forgotten. The win came after Australia rallied from being 15-3 down after 20 minutes, the lead changing hands four times in the second half and England having scored to go ahead in the 79th minute.
Contrastingly, however, the Wallabies were in the contest last year at Twickenham, trailing 10-7 with 25 minutes to go, but then fell out of it, and conceded three tries to lose 25-7.
“Two years ago, 2024, was a pretty special night for the whole team,” Jorgensen said.
“It’s pretty cool to win at Twickenham, the home of rugby. It’s a hard place to win, and to do it in that fashion was pretty cool. But obviously a disappointing one last year; didn’t really go our way, not how we hoped. So want to take those learnings into this week and hopefully put out a really good performance.”
The belief gained from the 2024 victory wasn’t all washed away, however, according to Jorgensen. And the Wallabies 23-man squad this weekend will likely contain 15 of the men who played in that match.
“Just having that feeling and knowing you can win at Twickenham, that you’ve done it before,” Jorgensen said.
“It can be a daunting place: 85,000, you know, singing, chanting, sort of a different type of atmosphere than you get over in Australia. So to have that confidence of knowing we’ve done it before and that we can do it is, yeah, definitely good.”
Bell said the Wallabies had to better in adapting, both in-game and against the differing styles of Test opponents.
“We’ve just got to be able to change and manoeuvre between teams; England aren’t going to be the same as the All Blacks,” he said.
“Do they suit us more or not? Again, it’s all about how we prepare, how we train, how we play.”
The Wallabies welcomed Northampton-based flanker Josh Kemeny back for a session on Wednesday at their training base in Teddington, but the 2023 Wallaby is not being considered for selection.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Friday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
Iain Payten is a senior sports reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: www.smh.com.au
