A tough ask for the Wallabies after England selected their full complement of players from club rugby while blocking access to the Wallabies players in the same comp. I’m on a stuttering replay because I slept through my alarm, but I’ll do the best with what I have.
The game
1st Half
Australia, while they had their moments, spent most of the first 20 minutes under pressure and gave away plenty of penalties. For all the pressure, the score had remained 0-0. England finally took a shot at goal from one of their penalties, but after the kick off England box kicked and regathered, then they threw two quick passes to score under the posts. All it took was a few seconds for the score to be 10 nil.
Australia absorbed plenty of pressure for the rest of the half. In the 33 minute England looked certain to score with a two man overlap, but Harry Potter intercepted the final pass and ran 95 metres to score. To be frank, the 10-7 half time score flattered the Wallabies, who never looked like scoring until Potter’s intercept.
2nd Half
The second half settled into some pretty average rugby, despite what the commentators would have you believe. After the 700th box kick of the game, England recovered one and Pollock touched down for their second try. On an unrelated matter, pillock and Pollock are nearly spelt the same.
Alex Mitchell was the next to score for England off a clever snipe from the back of a maul. And they score again minutes later when they walked a maul 25m to the line. The score was now 25-7 with only missed conversions saving Australia from complete humiliation.
And that was the final score. Australia never looked like scoring really. There are still problems around the halves, with no running threat at all from Gordon and no stand out candidate at flyhalf. Without Tate McDermott to give a point of difference at halfback, all our options there are pretty beige.
For the Wallabies, McReight was a standout. Paisami was good in patches, with his usual hiccups on show. The wingers in Jorgenson and Potter were okay but both threw horrible passes, Kellaway was well covered and Tupou had a good 45 minutes. Australia seemed to turn over a lot of ball with loose passes and missed about 20% of their tackles. All in all, a night to forget.
