As much as it hurts to accept the fact the All Blacks were beaten, and beaten convincingly, you can’t help but commend the Wallabies for a magnificent win. It was achieved through their sheer determination, typical resilience and mental toughness, let alone a grand master-plan instilled by the most dominant coach around at the moment, the extremely successful and distinguished Robbie Deans.

Arrogance, bravado and brashness aside, the Aussies thoroughly deserved their victory.

The NZRU are incompetent fools for having let an applicant with such high credentials slip through the net. Oddly enough, I personally don’t have anything against Graham Henry, who has done a tremendous job and achieved an unparalleled record that takes some beating. But after the shellacking suffered at the hands of his compatriot Deans, the All Blacks are suddenly looking like “just another team”.

The uproar post-World Cup from those calling for Henry’s head has now been justified, especially given the manner of how the All Blacks were outplayed, outmanoeuvred and outwitted for the entire 80 minutes. It was as embarrassing as it gets and credit to the Wallabies for having done their homework and having now defeated the world champions and current Tri-Nations/Bledisloe kingpins in consecutive weeks.

Deans was certainly influential in every aspect and the performance of the Australians was testament to that. The robotic game plan and confusing strategies previously programmed by the Eddie Jones/John Connolly regime was easily thrown into the incinerator and the players are obviously warming to the new kid on the block, something not seen since the happy days of Rod McQueen.

Apart from the experience and direction of the brilliant Matt Giteau, many of the better-than-average players became superstars overnight. I cannot recall a more pitiful display from an All Blacks team yet I also haven’t witnessed such a commanding spectacle manifested by the hungrier Wallabies, who are now sending an ominous warning to the rugby world, I hate to say.

It will be difficult for the defending champions to bounce back from this humiliating loss but if they can improve on the fundamentals such as catching the ball and controlling their ever-increasing lack of discipline, they might be able to play a wee bit better. Unfortunately for them, the Australians are also capable of improving their own game and the Bledisloe and Tri-Nations trophies could be in the ARU trophy cabinet as early as this Sunday.

The world’s best five-eighth Dan Carter was probably the only All Black to emerge with his reputation intact. Mils Muliaina and Sitiveni Sivivatu made their presence felt, too, but kindergarten-like handling errors really let them down. In fact, it was so un-All Black to constantly look like clowns with bumbling errors, knocking on straight-forward passes that even Stevie Wonder would have caught one-handed while doing a handstand with the other hand.

Andy Ellis picked up where he left off, with poor distribution and lacking finesse you would expect of an established halfback. He was literally way behind the eight ball  - thanks to his eight ‘invisible’ forwards. And, considering the pace of the game, he still attempted the death-riding step-back-before-passing ...  and got hammered accordingly.

Carter tried valiantly to steer his team-mates around and when he realised that some were either down on confidence or just playing downright dumb rugby, he had no choice but to take the “follow-me” attitude, not so much an individual stance. But even when players tried to back him up, they would drop the simple pass and duly paid a hefty price on several occasions with Crusaders-mode counter-attacking from the rejuvenated Aussies punishing silly mistakes. That’s Robbie Deans for you, bro.

The Carter vs Matt Giteau showdown did live up to its tag and both had huge games although despite Giteau being voted man-of-the-match, I thought Carter still came out on points in winning their personal duel. It was a similar confrontation to that of past legends Grant Fox and Michael Lynagh, who were superboots themselves and master tacticians - though their attacking ability left a lot to be desired. That’s how much the game has evolved. Pumas maestro Hugo Porta and slick Springbok Naas Botha were other great No.10s of the modern era.


Meanwhile, two of the most devastating runners in world rugby - Ma’a Nonu and Sione Lauaki - put on an Abbott and Costello comedy act, showing absolutely no intelligence in either attack or defence. I’d be surprised if they are chosen to front up again this weekend at Eden Park back in my home town, Auckland.

Look, I love these guys but how else will they ever be able to remove the deficiencies and fine-tune the basic skills in their game? It is inexcusable at Test level.

The All Black team will be selected by the time this article is printed and I sure hope the boys have learnt a harsh lesson - to forget about the rarity of back-to-back losses and to start afresh. They’re too good a team to begin a losing habit and they need to find a way out of the ditch they’re in. It's not quite a hole but it will be if they don’t start pulling their socks up as of this Saturday’s ‘Round Two’ clash with the dangerous Wallabies.