Lock up the Bledisloe

I must admit that every year one of my favourite sporting moments is the Bledisloe Cup. One of sports fiercest rivalries between two old foes. Every year the hype and the anticipations makes it such a fantastic sporting spectacle and lets face it the domination by the All Blacks in the past decade has made every victory that much sweeter.

Last Saturday night the All Blacks were one game away from locking away that famous cup for another year and adding to the stats sheet with their continuation of a flawless unbeaten record at Eden Park stretching back to 1986.

Unfortunately for Robbie "Dingo" Deans and has men it was a night they probably wish they could forget.

Now I’m not the biggest David Pocock fan and as a rugby supporter I find that the true test of a players abilities is against the best team in the world, and from my perspective I haven’t really seen him offer the goods that a well rounded and experienced player like Richie McCaw has for so many years now. I do not doubt his abilities but he’s not in the same ball back asthe greatest just yet. However loosing your captain and by far your best forward was always going to make the challenge just that much harder.

The Australian public were given what they asked for, Quade Cooper to be promoted back into the starting lineup and given the huge task of controlling and creating opportunities for his back line to feed into. Sadly, this just never happened. Not necessarily by Quade's faults, but the creativity and flair was just completely absent. It’s not a great sight when your back-line finally gets some possession and has just no idea what to do with it.

Now as the statistics show the possession was fairly evenly spread:

All Blacks - 52%

Wallabies - 49%

However line breaks tell of a different story

All Blacks - 6

Wallabies - 1

As does missed tackles

All Blacks - 13

Wallabies - 36

In a nut shell the All Blacks made more of their attacking opportunities and the Wallabies missed to many tackles to contain them. I will say that their defence did keep them in the game, however the same can also be said for missed opportunities and uncharacteristic errors that also kept the All Blacks score as low as what it was.

Being an avid Canterbury supporter for many years I have always been a fan of Robbie Deans and genuinely thought his appointment by the ARU would be the start of a huge turnaround for the Wallabies. Sadly wether or not its the coaching strategies and game plans he has implemented or just the fact that he just doesn't have the pool of talent to mould and work with that he did in Canterbury, but it looks like changes certainly need to be made.

After all his record against the All Blacks isn't doing him any favours and well, if they want to challenge for the top spot in world rugby then this needs to change.

The best in black on the night would have to be for the second week running Kieran Read who after a forced injury break at the later stages of the Super Rugby competition seems to be finding some of his best form. His ball handling and running skills are looking the goods to once again cement his place as one of the best loose forwards in world rugby today.

The backline boys, created a number of opportunities and as previously mentioned it was disappointing for them not to cross the chalk a few more times. Aaron Smith is showing the test caps against Ireland earlier in the year have placed him well, and he looks right at home in the test rugby arena. A few more errors to iron out but that will come with experience. Doesn't hurt that he was up against a classy act like Will Genia and completely held his own.

Like the first test in Sydney a week earlier Israel Dagg and Cory Jane again both found plenty of space and created havoc for the Wallabies defence. And in doing so destroyed former Wallabies coach Allan Jones's comment about the wallabies attack "There is no attacking player in the All Blacks side better than Quade Cooper or Kurtley Beale". Clearly after the past two tests, that just isn't the case. Case in point - Dagg, Jane, SBW, Carter the list goes on.

For our boys, a must better performance will be needed again when they face Argentina at Westpac Stadium in Wellington on the 8th of September.

We all have faith and lets face it we are all enjoying our continuing number one in the world status as always and adding another trophy to the cabinet doesn't hurt either.