Former Wallabies lock Justin Harrison had heard enough.
As the Stan Sport panel conducted another grisly Eden Park post-mortem in the wake of Australia’s 40-14 humbling, Harrison felt compelled to change the narrative.
After the mayhem of Melbourne it was an ugly way to end the Rugby Championship with the Wallabies sitting third with a 2-4 record before the Springboks vs Pumas finale in Durban on Sunday (1.05am AEST).
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Harrison fired up shortly after fellow panelist Allana Ferguson said the Wallabies had “crumbled” under the All Blacks pressure in Auckland.
“I think it’s important to recognise that New Zealand don’t have a mortgage on the jersey and national pride when they lose or win Test matches and they have fear of losing.
“Every single time you take a Wallaby jersey onto the field, you have the same amount of pride in wearing that jersey,” Harrison said.
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“Now what we’re searching for is a team that has consistency. For the first 20 minutes Harry Wilson was running great lines, Pete Samu, (Lalakai) Foketi was dominant in the middle of the field. We had some adversity thrown at us, we had over 25 missed tackles and we had over 13 or 14 handling errors.
“Now that is not a lack of pride and a lack of knowing what it means to wear the Wallaby jersey. So let’s arrest this thing that New Zealand have a fear of losing so they never lose. It’s not a lack of skill. The All Blacks have played very well.”
New Zealand moved clear atop the Rugby Championship ladder with the final round win although South Africa can claim the title by beating Argentina by 40 points or more and with a bonus point.
”We’ve seen the TRC, week on week, Australia have played very well and then poorly. South Africa have done the same, Argentina have done the same,” Harrison said.
“New Zealand have played poorly last week, Australia had that game won until the last 30 seconds and then came over to Eden Park – the All Blacks reacted well. Let’s not talk about the Wallabies are in disaster zones and they need to arrest all of these things that they’ve just had go wrong for them. There’s a pathway back to seeing what we saw last week, intertwined with the adversity thrown at them tonight.”
Wallabies coach Dave Rennie cut a sombre figure when speaking with Stan Sport.
As Harrison alluded to, Australia has played some terrific rugby under his watch at times but struggle to string two good performances together.
The bare statistics are alarming: Rennie has 11 wins, 15 losses and three draws on his Test resume for a winning hit rate of less than 38 per cent.
Injuries have bit hard and Rugby Australia chairman Hamish McLennan has guaranteed Rennie’s job security through to next year’s Rugby World Cup in France.
But long suffering supporters are quite rightly not happy as the Wallabies sit at an all-time low of ninth in the world rankings.
“Massive disappointment. Gave away too many penalties, lost the collisions and gave the All Blacks field position and they put us in the corner and hurt us,” Rennie said.
“We were shaded in all areas tonight. We know when we’re at our best, we can compete with anyone. But we’ve got to be in and around 100 per cent every week.
Whitelock awarded contentious try
“Otherwise, if we’re under par we get hurt like we do against good sides like New Zealand.”
Wallabies lock Jed Holloway and hooker Dave Porecki were sinbinned by Irish referee Andrew Brace in the first half while All Blacks captain Sam Whitelock was awarded a contentious try.
Australia centre Lalakai Foketi also joined the casualty ward with a shoulder injury and soon after All Blacks fullback Will Jordan breezed past replacement Jordan Petaia for a demoralising try.
“The yellow cards hurt,” Rennie said.
“The first one we got away with but it sucked a lot of energy out of us. We defended and scrambled. When you lose your hooker it’s hard to get our structure down where we’re throwing the ball where we can just win it and get our hands on the ball.
“It hurts in other ways. We’ve got to turn pressure into points. We didn’t do that enough. And we coughed up too much soft ball and penalties which gave them field position.”
Wallabies forwards coach Dan McKellar will also be hurting.
McKellar had spoken about turning Australia’s maul into the world’s best and for much of the season they had taken steps towards that.
But under their own new forwards mentor, Jason Ryan, the All Blacks bossed that area and hookers Codie Taylor and Samisoni Taukei’aho both scored tries from mauls to go with a penalty try.
New Zealand 40 (Will Jordan, Sam Whitelock, Codie Taylor, Samisoni Taukei’aho tries; penalty try; Richie Mo’unga 2 conversions, 3 penalties) Australia 14 (Folau Fainga’a, Jordan Petaia tries; Bernard Foley conversion, Reece Hodge conversion). HT: 17-0
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