The Wallabies will be relying on an unlikely carelessness from the All Blacks in Sydney if they are to avoid yet another defeat to their Tasman rivals.
There is no doubting one simple fact; the Wallabies have the capability of beating any side in world rugby. Players like Quade Cooper, regardless of how hated he is by kiwi fans, have the potential to shine on their day, but those days are too far apart. There seems to be almost a sense of panic that creeps into the game when the Wallabies find themselves in a winning position against the All Blacks.
Wallabies hoping for careless All Black mindset
Based on history, it is unlikely that the Wallabies will beat the All Blacks twice in a row to win back the Bledisloe Cup.
As seen in the match against the Springboks, the All Blacks are an 80-minute rugby team. Led by Richie McCaw, the All Blacks are capable of winning games in tight situations, keeping panic at bay and trusting that game plans will eventually bring the result home.
The All Blacks have all the characteristics that the Wallabies need to not only win back the Bledisloe Cup, but to go all the way in the RWC in a couple of months time.
Last season, the Wallabies were unlucky not to beat the All Blacks on a wet and difficult night in Sydney and history repeated itself a few months later in Brisbane when Colin Slade slotted a match-stealing conversion after the full time hooter.
The Wallabies will be high on confidence this weekend, and so they should be. They outplayed Argentina right across the park last time out and put in a better all round performance against the South Americans than the All Blacks did.
But, with all due respect to rugby fans in Argentina, the All Blacks are a far greater challenge.
The Wallabies have long been ‘there or thereabouts’ in games against the All Blacks dating all the way back to before the last RWC, but failure to close out games in winning situations has done more damage to the Wallabies confidence than anything else, because if they are in a position to win the game with 20-minutes to play, all seems to go downhill very quickly.
There is no argument that the All Blacks were not deserving of victory against the Wallabies last time out in Brisbane. The Wallabies choked, nothing more or less.
The Wallabies must use this as inspiration to say “we will not choke again”, and if there is any ground where the Wallabies get up for big games, it is this weekends venue of ANZ Stadium in Sydney.
The All Blacks should win this game, not comfortably, but enough to secure the Rugby Championship and Bledisloe Cup for another year. Daniel Carter strongly denied media speculation that these two trophies mean nothing in a World Cup year, saying that the All Blacks were 100% committed to this weekends game.
To most New Zealand rugby fans, and Australian for that matter, what happens in the UK will be far more important, and the Wallabies may well be hoping that it is this exact mindset that will lead to an upset victory on Saturday night in Sydney.
If the Wallabies win game one, who knows what will happen the week after.
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