Wallabies ‘faced the music’ as attention turns to Bledisloe II in Sydney

Tom Wright has reflected on the Wallabies’ disappointment after a 50-19 defeat to the All Blacks at Eden Park, with the Aussies coming together to “face the music” before turning their attention to another Bledisloe Cup showdown.

Wright has played 52 Tests for the Wallabies but has only tasted victory over the All Blacks once, which was his debut game in November 2020. The outside back scored with his first touch, as the Wallabies went on to claim a thrilling win at Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium.

But the Wallabies are now on a 12-match losing streak against the All Blacks, which has seen the New Zealanders retain the Bledisloe Cup time and time again. The All Blacks locked up the Bled for a 24^th straight year with a 31-point win at the Garden last Saturday.

Ben Donaldson and Max Jorgensen helped set up Wright for the opener, with the fullback slicing through the All Blacks’ defensive line to score. That capped off a dominant start for the visitors, who had about 90 per cent possession in the first 10 minutes.

It was a three-point ball game at half-time, but the All Blacks ran away with a convincing win in the second half. But Wright said the Wallabies know they must “pick up the pieces pretty quickly” ahead of another Bledisloe Cup Test, to be played at Sydney’s Accor Stadium this weekend.

“The music of the scoreboard. No one wants to be on the receiving end of 50 points. No one wants to be on the receiving end of a loss,” Wright told reporters.

“At 17-14, we’re right in the contest. The game was there to be taken… when the opportunity pre-game was there for us to have everyone was so excited. We knew the opportunity was there for us to have.

“We felt like all the guns were loaded and we had the ammunition to fire shots to win the game. We didn’t. That’s the music I was talking about.

“You can be internally so driven to win, when you don’t, that’s the disappointment you have to face. The next opportunity is across the road here for us on Saturday but we know that the Bledisloe Cup remains across the ditch for another 12 months or whatever it’s going to be.

“Disappointing but we can’t carry that disappointment into the rest of this week because it’s not going to help us on Saturday.”

Cam Roigard dove over for a decisive score early in the second half, before captain Codie Taylor added another five points to the All Blacks’ lead soon after. The Wallabies ended up making more than 200 tackles on het night, as the All Blacks took control in attack.

The Wallabies conceded 10 penalties throughout the 80 minutes, and the All Blacks were able to capitalise on some opportunities. Leroy Carter, Josh Moorby and Will Jordan also got on the scoresheet, as the All Blacks retained the Bled with a clinical performance.

It saw the All Blacks extend their remarkable unbeaten run at the Garden to 54 Tests, having not lost there since the 1990s. They’re also back in the winners circle after losing three straight to the Springboks during the Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry series.

“They’re not a poor team. They’re arguably one, two in the world and have been for a number of seasons. It’s not like we’re coming up against a team that a lot of teams in world rugby don’t struggle to win against,” Wright explained.

“The narrative will always be that, around we haven’t got our hands on the Bledisloe Cup for some time now.

“If I had the golden egg answer, it’d be pretty handy to have. But I certainly don’t think there’s any mental scars.

“The difficulty of playing that team is just that – they were there for the taking for us pre-game, up until half-time you could have made the exact some argument that we’re right in it. They probably just applied a lot more pressure in the second half than we were able to apply to them and the choccies fell their way.”