The hell with the match report, let’s just go straight to the exultation.
Wow! Just WOW!
This, friends, was a Test match for the ages, one for the Wallabies to put in a bottle and place on the very top shelf – one for us all to take down when the days grow cold and we grow old, to take out the cork and say: this, this was how good Australian rugby could be at its very best!
And it wasn’t just the extraordinary result, a spanking 42-38 victory in Perth over the incumbent back-to-back world champion Springboks, the No.1 ranked team in the world for no less than 52 of the last 53 weeks. It was the manner in which they did it, the chutzpah, verve and swerve they showed for the first 68 minutes of the match to completely dominate in all aspects of play. And then what took the breath away was how they managed to overcome the unprecedented challenges thrown at them in the last 10 minutes to win anyway, the resilience they displayed to triumph against all odds, just when they had every reason to lose.
Let’s go back.
Going into this match, we of rugby could legitimately ask ourselves: on this extraordinary footballing weekend in Australia, just what could the Code-of-XV, deliver in the way of drama that could compare to what we had just seen in the other codes?
It was not going to be easy.
After all, the Socceroos had just had a fabulous 1-1 draw with Brazil in Townsville – including a stupendous goal from Nestory Irankunda – and were unlucky not to get an outright victory over the perennial world champions, thwarted only by a Brazilian goal in the 95th minute.
In the AFL, you had the Fremantle Dockers on the edge of their first-ever grand final victory – three goals up with four minutes to go, only for the Brisbane Lions to reel off four goals for a staggeringly dramatic result.
In the NRL preliminary final on Sunday, we saw the team of their generation, Penrith, beaten in a wonderfully open match by the working-class heroes of Newcastle, who were no less than wooden spooners last year! Yup, the hard-as-steel men of the hard-as-steel city, came from nowhere, to pass Makybe Diva at the post!
So, seriously, what could rugby do against all that?
Well, how ’bout this?
How ’bout the Wallabies take on the best team in the world, and then completely dominate them in all facets of play? How ’bout against the most feared pack in the world, our blokes more than hold their own to shove them about in the scrum, steal balls from their lineouts, and knock them over like-nine-pins in our own fearsome forward rushes, led by Fraser McReight and skipper Harry Wilson, with Jeremy Williams and Angus Bell riding shotgun. Huh? HUH? Not bad, yes?
How ’bout in the backs – led by the masterful halfback Ryan Lonergan and the imperially imperious Len Ikitau in the centres – the smaller blokes in gold jerseys unleash havoc of their own, starting with two tries to the man they call “Flick-itau” in the first half.
On the back of that performance, the Wallabies led 24-17 at the break, before a singularly strange thing happened in the second half. We all knew that the much vaunted Bok bench – the “bomb squad” of brilliant players they’d kept in reserve – was going to come on and blow things up.
The expectation was that they would restore order and dominate. Instead, they were blown up! The Wallabies continued to dominate all the same, in no small part due to the heroics of Max Jorgensen on one wing, and Joseph Aukuso Suaalii on the other. Suaalii demonstrated once more just how good he can be in the air, while getting through a mountain of work. Jorgensen, too, constantly plucked the ball from the skies to cause the South Africans endless problems, including one runaway intercept try.
On the strength of Lonergan kicking all but one conversion, the Wallabies were so dominant overall they had a 25-point lead, 42-17 with 12 minutes to go against – did I mention? – far and away the best team in the world! That would have been enough to write home to mother about.
But we had seen nothing yet.
For after Harry Wilson, Ryan Lonergan, Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii and Hunter Paisami were sin-binned in quick succession, it meant that for the better part of the final 12 minutes, the Wallabies were down to just 11 players. In unprecedented scenes, they had to try to hold back a green tide of 15 rampaging Boks that kept crashing on our shores with ever greater ferocity.
Of course, with those mathematics the visitors couldn’t be completely stopped and the Boks did indeed score three tries in that period to make it 42-38.
But that last one?
Yeah, nah.
The Wallabies had come too far, played too well and overcome too many challenges to succumb and refused to cede. Instead they clung on like cats to a curtain, tackled themselves red-raw, and when granted a blessed penalty kick at the death, it was over to Jorgensen to forget the goal attempt and just kick into the grand-stand instead, to finish the game.
42-38, to the goodies!
As I say, a truly great victory. Most wonderfully it was a super lead-in to both the Bledisloe which begins in a fortnight in Auckland – dare we hope? – and next year’s home Rugby World Cup.
I have said for yonks that this generation of Wallabies have greatness in them if they can just put it together. Tonight, in Perth, we saw it. The fact they have not been defeated in their last six Test matches proves the point.
In one of the most dramatic football weekends in Australian history, the Wallabies more than held their own.
Congratulations to them. And bring on the All Blacks!
Peter FitzSimons is a journalist and columnist with The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X.
