Mortlock pays price for sins of the past
EVEN as the Wallabies are setting themselves to open a new era tonight against Ireland in Melbourne, the bony hand of the old era has reached out and claimed one last victim, with captain Stirling Mortlock surrendering the goalkicking duties to Matt Giteau.
It's not what many might think, that Mortlock is belatedly paying the price for his last-gasp, long-range penalty goal attempt against England. The agonisingly narrow miss that sent John Connolly's Wallabies crashing out of the World Cup at the quarter-final stage last October. But that's not to say the ghost of Marseille's Stade Velodrome hasn't tapped Mortlock on the shoulder.
The singular failure of Mortlock's captaincy at the World Cup was his inability to communicate to his forwards the urgency of countering England's tactic of flooding the breakdown and brutally driving the few Australians contesting there off the ball.
Ultimately it cost the Wallabies the match and a very real shot at a third Webb Ellis Trophy. And one of the reasons was that when the best opportunities presented themselves for Mortlock to call his troops together to lay down the law, he was instead lining up a shot at goal.
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