New Zealand 12 defeated Australia 6
Christchurch - 13 July 2002

Conditions in Christchurch on Saturday night were so utterly shite that I would not have been surprised to see the German Olympic luge team skylarking down the touch line.

To their everlasting credit, the Wallabies, looking not altogether unlike a pack of marsupials stranded on an iceberg, put their heads down and determinedly went about the business of trying to beat the All Blacks at their own game and, almost literally in the case of the twelve Crusaders playing for New Zealand, in their own backyard.

Sadly, their best simply wasn't good enough on the day, as All Black maestro Andrew Mehrtens gave the Australians a lesson in precision tactical kicking in the worst conditions imaginable. Apparently, a "normal" test will include some 30-40 midfield kicks. Saturday night's game consisted of around 140, with the weather negating the prospect of any expansive backline play.

Handling errors, many (but not all) of which were attributable to the rain and sleet, didn't help the Wallabies' cause, and Eddie Jones rightly identified this as an area that needs attention before the team faces the Springboks in Brisbane in a fortnight.

However, the Wallabies should feel well pleased with the efforts of their forwards, who more than matched their highly-regarded All Black counterparts. The Wallabies were dominant in the lineout, held their own in the scrum - including a mighty screw that resulted in an Australian feed, and were solid at the breakdown, though Richie McCaw had the better of his battle with George Smith.

There has been some conjecture about Dan Herbert's near-try and the possibility that a penalty try should have been awarded. However, referee Jonathan Kaplan made the right call, correctly judging the try to have been 'possible' rather than 'probable'. Still, it would have been nice if Scott Robertson has resisted the temptation to commit the flagrant professional foul. Mind you, I thought that Kaplan's short-arm penalty against the All Blacks for delaying a lineout about ten metres from the Wallabies' line was perhaps a tad harsh.

At the end of the day, the All Blacks played the conditions better than the Wallabies, and were the better team on the day. But the result may well be very different on a dry track. The fact that the Wallabies were, for the most part, able to stay with the All Blacks in such adverse conditions, in a match in which the Wallabies' main weapon - their running backs - were not a factor, says much for the balance within this team.

Hopefully, Sydney will provide dry, Wallaby-friendly conditions on 3rd August for the return bout.

- Dan Fowell