As for talking down silverware you've won, I believe you should never talk down anything won by the efforts of those representing your country and by proxy you through their hard work, skill, dedication and sometimes blind luck. You never know when it could be your last piece of silverware for a very long time. We fans of Tier 1 nations are very lucky. I believe that future generation may witness such unspeakable events as an Ireland, Aus or SA team failing to qualify for a RWC. Now those guys will have something to gripe about and they'll look back with fondness on the golden era which we currently enjoy.
I agree with what you are saying to a point. We all know that it takes 100 things happening over 80 minutes to get a result, and no-one (including myself) really thinks that one action in isolation determines a result; the penalty after the siren was such an action and it really was fortuitous for the Wallabies.
But, and it's a but that I have really struggled with recently, when you talk about a "golden age", you forget that we were promised so much more.
We were promised that winning the Bledisloe was the first priority 5 years ago. Fail.
We were promised that the poor results and lack of trophy's were really just a stepping stone to the ultimate prize, being RWC11. Fail.
Now we are promised that in fact, it is RWC15 we are now targeting. Who knows?
Along the way, we have dropped some dreadful games and now our next generation Wallabies, who have been mentioned as some of the best young talent for years, have just been blown away at the Baby Worlds.
This is in no way a finger pointing exercise; others have done and are doing a far more aggressive campaign on finger pointing than little old me.
After much patience and support, (my record on these forums backing Deans fully over the last 4.5 years can not be argued with), I just don't see any promises being delivered, and we can say how good it was to win the Test series against the Welsh, but the manner of the win/s left me a bit cold. For a team that has been 5 years in the making I cannot say that (as of right now) I see us as world beaters in any respect.
I take into account we are missing some big names. But sport, like life, means you will not always have the preferred options available.
Anyway, like most things I post, it is only my opinion and I fully respect the right of others to see things differently.