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Despite our scrum getting raped and being overwhelmed at the breakdown towards the end of the second 40, the wallabies stepped into new territory by putting a rugby power to the sword today.
It was pretty to watch.
In typical French style however, the white flag went up early and the rot set in.
The intensity of the Wales/allblacks game was never reached. The walabies were advancing the ball at will in the last 20 minutes as the French lost interest in competing at the breakdown and tackling.
A significant moment for mine was Slipper shifting to tighthead and Robinson coming on. We have in those two, two props who can scrum. Ben Alexander has a terrible technique and got hooked by Dingo Deans after his performance threatened to have Australia penalised out of the game.
The tries began to flow in the second 40 and it was pleasing to see the wallabies put the foot on the French throat after slitting the jugular. The French are an enigma. They were terrible in the second half.
Our attack was one domensional at times in the first half. The scrum was raped but improved a lot in the second half when Alexander was hooked after being binned for not being able to scrum. He is the thrid Australian prop to win the Al Baxter medal for scrummaging faux pas.
The pleasing aspect was as the momentum swung, the wallabies piled on the tries, and kicked intelligently for field position. It seems they have learned how to win. They had to dig themselves out of a sticky situation at halftime.
There have been some landmarks on this tour with a win against the allblacks and a thrashing of France.
The England debacle is a reminder of our inconsistency and how bad we can be when we don't turn up.
The allblacks were simply magnificent against Wales. The Welsh threw everything at them and absolutely belted them in defence and at the breakdown. The allblacks are fitter and more physical than the wallabies. We are still behind.
A very pleasing end to the tour. We need to fix our scrum but there is hope for the big RWC year ahead. The world is on notice after we put nearly 60 points on France in Paris. Go you good things go