Australian rugby has been so battered and bruised this season — four losses in four games — that anything even remotely better than a hammering is hailed as something akin to the second coming.
That could be why journalists are slobbering over the national team after it lost narrowly to New Zealand at the death in the final international rugby game of the southern season. Australia led for more than three-quarters of the game, but could not hold together in the second half the way it had in the first 40 minutes.
To put the game in context, one has to bear in mind that New Zealand made 12 changes to the team that had beaten Australia the previous week. Given that the silverware on offer for the southern season — the Rugby Championship and the Bledisloe Cup — had both been won, New Zealand coach Ian Foster treated the game as a way to test out some new faces and see their worth. Continue reading “Bledisloe II result needs to be viewed in context”