Maori point to weakness of Wallabies

By CHRIS RATTUE

Maori coach Matt Te Pou believes that Australia has a softness in their tight forward play which the All Blacks can take advantage of.

Te Pou was gutted after his side's 29-41 loss to Australia at the Sydney Football Stadium on Saturday night.

But he believed there were some encouraging signs for the All Blacks.

The Maori increasingly asked questions in the tight, carting the ball ahead through their forwards for two phases and then using wings Roger Randle and Bruce Reihana as third-wave runners.

It came close to paying dividends in a thrilling match, before a crowd of 31,000, although in the cold light of day Australia had triumphed yet again in a major fixture between the two countries.

"We have no excuses," Te Pou said yesterday. "I had the team and we believed we could win. We went there to do that, not to make up the numbers.

"We believed Australia had a soft belly in the forwards, and I really believed that after the first half. They have a very good lineout and scrum. But in general play there's a weakness.

"They load up their defence around the fringes, so you take them on through the middle. We did that more and more with our running and mauling in the second half. But like all great teams, they'll address that and train to solve it."

Te Pou accepted referee Mark Lawrence's decision in the first half to send Caleb Ralph to the sin bin for a late hit on Stephen Larkham. This produced a 14-point turnaround as a superb Troy Flavell try was rubbed out and Australia quickly scored through a magical run from Andrew Walker.

But Te Pou was disappointed that Lawrence did not seek video assistance after Norm Hewitt claimed to have scored when the Maori trailed by just 19-21. In the end, the match threw up the old question of was the glass half-full, or half-empty?

Was it a triumph for Maori rugby, or another indication that Australia have the rugby world by the scruff of the neck? Maybe a bit of both.

As the Maori had such a limited preparation, which was disrupted by injuries, and missed the rub of the green from referee Lawrence, their performance was memorable.

Captain Deon Muir fairly claimed: "The whole team did the Maori jersey proud."

Encouragingly, locks Mark Cooksley and Norm Maxwell probably won the vital battle of the air.

Kickoffs are an area where teams gain vital momentum.

But it is a mistake to continually see matches as trials or in terms of their significance for things yet to come.

This, after all, was an international fixture in which a new-look Australian side, with just half of the team who won the 1999 World Cup final, prevailed without showing all their wares.

There was the familiar sight of Larkham drifting across the defensive line then flicking back passes to big forwards such as David Giffin to plough the ball forward.

But these are the most basic of Australian rugby moves and the lingering feeling was that Rod Macqueen had left some fire power in the armoury.

The Australian coach was concerned about his defensive patterns, players' composure and turnovers. "But certainly I thought the positives outweighed the negatives and it's a good lead-up [to the Lions] for us."