BREAKDOWN, BREAKDOWN, breakdown, was the mantra from the Australian camp, especially frustrated backs such as Will Genia, Quade Cooper and Adam Ashley-Cooper, who save for attacking spells in the early and latter stages, were denied quick, front-foot ball they flourish with.
But for Ben Alexander to face the press seemed the bravest of all, the Wallabies’ loosehead having to eat dirt both figuratively and literally.
The Australian media had helped to talk up the improved Australian scrum with articles on their scrum camps and it had appeared Alexander was part of their solution in his outstanding performance in the 20-20 draw at Croke Park in November 2009. Cian Healy was a 22-year-old making his Test debut that day, whereas on Saturday, a couple of weeks shy of his 24th birthday, he was playing in his 22nd Test.
“I thought Cian scrummed very well. He’s very much improved. He was only young when I first played him, he’s a quality frontrow, very strong. There’s definitely some stuff we do differently, tactics-wise and I think they probably out-thought us at scrum-time tonight but hopefully, you know, England, they lost in the pool stages of the last World Cup, got thumped by South Africa and they went on and made the final. So, we’ll do our analysis, put it behind us and move forward.”
Alexander declined any caveats about conditions or referee Bryce Lawrence. “Every scrum’s a contest. We got them on a couple but they were just better than us tonight. We’ve got a good scrum and we’ll work hard and fix the errors and mistakes that we made. You won’t see another performance like that from the scrum, I promise,” he vowed.
“We were poor, we didn’t allow our backs to get any continuity because we were getting stifled at the breakdown,” said a slightly shocked-looking Australia James Horwill. “There are a number of things we didn’t do well enough, and the Irish did better than us. The breakdown was an area where we were quite poor and they were very good. They had a set plan to slow us up and they did it well”
It also appeared Alexander and co were a little taken aback at Ireland’s sustained intensity over 80 minutes. “We felt in control at half-time, we weren’t playing great but we just thought we’d step it up. We kept making mistakes and we didn’t stick to our guns, not just at scrum-time, we didn’t stick to our game plan . . . this is a massive wake-up call.”
During the interval, Alexander revealed they had identified the need to quicken up their ruck ball. “Their backrow was outstanding,” he said, “and the forwards in particular at the tackle were better than us. They slowed our ball right down and just didn’t allow us to get our attack going.”
“It was certainly a taste of reality but it’s not the taste we’re unfamiliar with,” admitted coach Robbie Deans. “There was an education, particularly for a number of players who are in their first World Cup, and we have to learn more if we are to push on and achieve anything.”
