The Wallaroos are out for revenge while the Welsh are looking to back up their first victory over the Wallaroos last week.
First Half
In the opening minutes I was wondering if I needed new glasses. The G&G dropped the opening kick off, were passive in defence, couldn’t defend a driving maul and were lucky not to be two tries down. They compounded that with lineout errors. Was I watching the Wallabies play again?
When they got some possession, the Wallaroos played well and applied pressure for long periods but had what looked like their first try called back because they ignored the ref calling “use it” on a stationary maul (Wales can defend mauls). A couple of minutes later, back to back linebreaks saw Morgan score a nice try.
A few minutes of back and forth, mostly between the 22s, and that lack of maul defence came back to bite the Wallaroos. A penalty (given Hoss hated every decision the referee made and channelled his inner Saffa to abuse her one I’m sure he disagreed with) led to a 5m lineout, a nice maul and a Welsh try.
Just before the clock turned red Karpani barged over, genuinely carrying from outside the 22. Undoubtedly after a few beers that will stretch to from their 22!
At halftime, 10-5.
Second Half
Wales started brightly again, off a handling error by Australia and then a stolen lineout. Their lineout woes continued, but the scrum was a different story. While their dominance wasn’t complete, they milked a steady string of penalties at the scrum.
In the 55th minute Australia were awarded a penalty for a breakdown offence right in front of the posts and finally a kick went through.
There was another period of back and forth, mostly between the 22s before the Wallaroos started to build pressure. A held up attempt was followed up by a converted try from Stewart. Almost immediately a try from Moleka secured a bonus point and stretched the lead to 20 points with less than 15 minutes to go.
Another poor restart might have let Wales back in, but their frailty in the opposition 22 reared its head again.
The confidence of that two try burst seemed to spread through the Wallaroos and their ball handling improved markedly in the final 15 minutes. This led to a nice try to Cramer in the corner, a second try to Stewart from a lineout that actually worked after the Welsh replacement hooker was shown yellow for a high tackle.
Wales continued to defend, denying the Wallaroos any more points, including Calendar racking up an impressive 3/3 lineout wins on her throw, not bad for a flanker!
Final score 37-5.
Final Thoughts
Since the end of the 2023 Six Nations Wales have had issues converting opportunities into points, and that’s continued into this tournament. At one point Wales had three knocks on and they were all within 5m of the try line, stopping attacking moves. While there were other handling errors in other parts of the pitch later on, and good defence that cost them tries too, I lost count of how many tries Wales butchered with handling errors, certainly enough to make it close, maybe enough to win.
While I appreciate that the men’s and women’s games are separate, in many ways this game reminded me of the June tests between the men from these nations. Australia dominated the scrum, were poor at lineout, bad at maul defence, poor at kickoff reception and their passing skills let them down too often. Sound familiar?
