TJ Perenara of the All Blacks leads the All Blacks Haka during the Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images.
TJ Perenara of the All Blacks leads the All Blacks Haka during the Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images.
OPINION:
The decisive act which won the All Blacks the second Bledisloe Cup test wasn't Caleb Clarke's miracle run through six tackles to create a try for Ardie Savea.
It wasn't the punchy linebreak by Patrick Tuipulotu and the dinky pass to Sam Cane who finished off the points hauland it wasn't Beauden Barrett's hit and spin blast that saw him make 60 metres when mere mortals would have gone just 10.
The defining moment came just two minutes into the test at Eden Park when Dane Coles lingered after he made a pass and then decided to shove Wallabies prop Taniela Tupou and trigger a scrap.
That one act of belligerence set the tone for the 80 minutes and had a huge impact on the test because clearly Tupou didn't like being singled out by such a deliberate act of aggression and like many self-styled Wallabies hard men of the past, discovered, in front of 45,000 New Zealanders at Eden Park, that he was nowhere near as tough as he thought.
What the All Blacks remembered at Eden Park is that Australia doesn't actually do genuine hard men.
The Wallabies haven't produced a hall of fame hard nut since George Smith retired, although the Scott Fardy, Michael Hooper, David Pocock loose trio combination had a bit of something about them at the 2015 World Cup.
But proper intimidating types who are not allowed to tuck their children up at night for fear of giving them nightmares – the Aussies don't really have any of those and essentially Coles was brought into start at Eden Park to expose that very fact.
In Wellington, the Wallabies demonstrated that their physicality is mostly in the budget range – economy brand intimidation if you like, built on late tackles, obstructive running and sneak attacks off the ball.
It works if it goes unchecked as it did in Wellington where neither the All Blacks nor the referee bothered to nip that nonsense in the bud.
That meant that the Tongan Thor was able to roam around the Cake Tin as if he was Lord of the Manor and the All Blacks on his staff.
Taniela Tupou of the Wallabies is tackled during the Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images.
The Wallabies built much of their confidence in the capital on the strength and effectiveness of his ball carrying and in the way they were able to niggle without retribution.
It was a massive failure of psychology by the All Blacks because it failed to acknowledge that the Australian mind-set is set up to see indifference or inaction as weakness.
What the All Blacks obviously realised or remembered ahead of the test in Auckland is that Australia have little appetite for open confrontation and perennially run the risk that should a team respond to their cheap antics, they don't often have the means to withstand it.
TJ Perenara of the All Blacks leads the All Blacks Haka during the Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images.
Tupou only lasted 40 minutes at Eden Park and that should be seen as a direct consequence of Coles squaring up to him in the second minute.
The big prop was gang-tackled whenever he had the ball, targeted in the scrum and ultimately exposed as being mentally fragile – certainly not in possession of the resilience required to hold his own in a contest of wills against Coles.
Tupou was by no means the only Wallaby who didn't like the changed nature of the All Blacks at Eden Park. Collectively they missed 40 tackles and while some of that was due to the improved way the All Blacks manipulated the defence, most of that statistic was driven by an application and attitude failure within the Wallabies.
The All Blacks ran at defenders more than they did space and found that the Wallabies didn't always have the necessary grit to put their bodies on the line.
It may have seemed like that scuffle between Tupou and Coles was spontaneous – a result, as the All Blacks hooker said himself to referee Angus Gardner, of being a little too excited.
Caleb Clarke of the All Blacks makes a break during the Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images.
But it wasn't that at all. It was a deliberate and conscious act by Coles who had just as obviously been given licence to ensure the All Blacks made a statement of intent early and let it be known that the second test was being played under different rules to the first.
Coles smacked Tupou and the Wallabies went on to miss 40 tackles. The two events were definitely connected and the significance of that one act of defiance by the veteran hooker was enormous.
The Wallabies are back in Australia, their hard man bluff called and are no doubt now wondering whether they have within their ranks the sort of characters that have the stomach for real test football.
Taniela Tupou of the Wallabies is tackled during the Bledisloe Cup match between the New Zealand All Blacks and the Australian Wallabies. Photo / Getty Images.
