LONG READ Are Wallabies still on upward trajectory after TRC or has progress flatlined?

Started strongly, but faded? Early result now perhaps just a massive outlier? Upward trajectory stymied by injury and selection upheaval? Progress not sustainable because depth isn’t there?

Yes, probably. No, maybe not. Could be, I don’t know.

All of the above could be simultaneously completely true of the Wallabies and also completely false, and with a million impacting variables in between.

Their final match of The Rugby Championship, doubling as the second leg of the destiny-already-decided Bledisloe Cup, had too many common elements for Wallabies fans.

As they did the week before in Auckland, the All Blacks closed the game out exceptionally well. Len Ikitau scored the Wallabies’ sole try in the 66th minute to bring the margin back to less than a converted try, but yet again, this was close as they would get.

Damien McKenzie kicked his second penalty of the night in the 70th minute, to push the margin out to nine, and from there, New Zealand held a whopping 92% of possession in the last 10 minutes. Just as at Eden Park, Australia couldn’t mount the final attack they desperately wanted in the final 10 because they couldn’t get their hands on the ball.

The Wallabies edged the possession stats overall, but the territory has yet again worked against them in a Bledisloe Cup contest.

New Zealand dominated overall territory to the tune of 59%, but a deeper dive into the territory measure is needed to get a true picture of why the Wallabies perhaps did well to get back within six points.

RugbyPass stats show that 74% of the All Blacks’ possession was in the Australian half, while the Wallabies held 79% of their possession between the 22s. They were not that far behind New Zealand for points scored per entry into the 22, but the problem was that they only made half as many entries.

Beyond this, there were so many other familiar storylines: 15 turnovers conceded, 29 missed tackles from 163 attempts, and 14 penalties conceded, keeping up an already worryingly upward trend.

There’s worse to that upward penalty trend, too. After only conceding their first yellow card of 2025 in Auckland, Australia incurred a second and third within half an hour of each other in Perth.

So, right now, with only a couple of weeks’ rest and recuperation before heading to Japan to face the Brave Blossoms in the first of a gruelling sequence of five successive Tests – with England, Italy, Ireland and France to follow – what to make of the Wallabies after 10 Test matches in 2025?

Well, I’ll be honest, I don’t know what to make of them. And it seems, I’m not alone here.

The way silly mistakes, skill errors and bad decisions have crept back into the Wallabies’ game over the last month is really worrying. Three straight losses after such a promising start just leaves way too many unanswered questions.

A skim through social media responses over the weekend showed that people aren’t entirely sure what annoys (or pleases) them most about the way the Wallabies finished the TRC campaign.

“They have certainly improved but damn they keep breaking my heart” said one. “That first 20 by the Wallabies were bloody good” said another, in trying to sum up the Perth performance.

“Bad decisions / silly mistakes the biggest concern… Linespeed better but we still look passive,” said another. There were more than a few references to “the Wallabies of old”, and if you’re thinking that could still mean the really great Wallabies teams of old, it definitely does not.

Some wondered about lingering mental fatigue from the Lions Series, which I guess could be a thing. Others lamented the Wallabies not ‘taking the three’ enough, even though Tane Edmed kicked three penalties in wet weather in Perth, and the Wallabies had only kicked six penalties in nine Tests up to Saturday.

The end of the TRC can only be described as a disappointing finish to the home season, with five upcoming Tests that will be far from easy.

The way silly mistakes, skill errors and bad decisions have crept back into the Wallabies’ game over the last month or so is really worrying and three straight TRC losses after such a promising start just leaves way too many unanswered questions.

Defence? Numbers paint a better picture than you might realise

With modern defensive systems all about speed and movement and disruption, rather than tackles made or not, pure missed tackle stats can be quite misleading. And as it happens, the Wallabies’ tackle efficiency was the best in the TRC anyway.

So perhaps tries conceded might be an indicator. Australia conceded 10 tries in their three-Test series with the British & Irish Lions, plus two to Fiji beforehand, for an average of exactly three tries conceded per match.

Through The Rugby Championship, this dropped just below three tries per match, conceding six tries against the Springboks in South Africa, just three against Argentina back home, then eight against New Zealand for a tally of 17 for the tournament. But weighed against 21 scored, it’s a net positive.

Clean breaks and defenders beaten are even on par with the other three TRC sides, too, though there was a definite feeling of passiveness about the Australian defence, and certainly a belief it will need to be better on their November tour.

Scrum? Still quite surprisingly solid

I’ve reiterated this point several times already recently, that after not losing a single scrum to the Lions, Springboks and Pumas, the Wallabies didn’t concede one against New Zealand, either.

The tally of scrums won and lost in 2025 now runs to 66 and 1 (against Fiji), and they’ve done it using 23 different players across the starting and bench positions, making the feat all the more impressive.

The Wallabies scrum has become completely dependable, if perhaps still not a dominant weapon, and it is providing a solid platform which will be very handy in the northern hemisphere.

Lineout? Worryingly shaky suddenly

What was a weapon through the Lions series, and even in South Africa, has been increasingly fragile back in Australia, to the point the Wallabies won only two thirds of their own lineout ball in Perth on Saturday.

Certainly, Billy Pollard has had an off couple of weeks with his throwing, which is a great shame considering how seriously good he’s been in pretty much every other aspect of his game through the tournament. That’s not to lay the blame squarely at his feet either, when timing from lifters and jumpers is every bit as crucial as the throw.

The worry with this, is that so much of the Wallabies’ first-phase attack is launched into the opposition midfield defence from the lineout platform. Rob Valetini makes metres for fun this way (who’d be a centre in defence?), and it has been a reliable service to build attack from until recent weeks.

It is imperative that this lineout accuracy is returned because the Wallabies really can’t afford to lose this platform for attack. It has to be rectified before they arrive in Japan.

Curiously, lineout steals also seem to have dried up, with Nick Frost and Jeremy Williams managing just one steal each for the two Bledisloe Tests.

Kicking? Fine skill-wise, but needs strategic rethink

On pure numbers, the Wallabies kicked about the same amount through The Rugby Championship as did New Zealand and Argentina, though all three kicked a lot less than South Africa.

That’s a bit of a surprise, because it has felt of late that the Wallabies’ default is to not kick a massive amount. They did kick twice as much in Perth as they did in Auckland, despite both games being hampered by ordinary weather.

They might be kicking as much as other teams, but are they kicking from the right parts of the field, and are they kicking into the right part of opposition territory?

But their kicking needs a rethink either way, simply because modern defensive systems are such that more teams are winning games without a majority share of possession. The Wallabies through this tournament have found themselves unable to play at the right end of the field, yet seem to believe that possession is the way to get out of their own half.

As they’ve discovered in recent weeks, it’s really only a blueprint for turnovers.

So, let’s use the most recent example again. Australia and the All Blacks kicked 28 and 25 times respectively in Perth, yet New Zealand played nearly three-quarters of their possession in the Australian half, while Australia played just over half theirs in the All Blacks half.

The All Blacks’ kicking game was such that only a quarter of their ball was played in their own half, while Australia held 44% of their own ball on their side of halfway.

They might be kicking as much as other teams, but are they kicking from the right parts of the field, and are they kicking into the right part of opposition territory?

Attack? 33 tries in 10 games isn’t terrible, but…

The Wallabies’ 2025 average of 3.3 tries per game is up on their 2024 average of three, which itself was a big jump on the disastrous 2023 season, where they could only manage 23 tries in nine games – a shade over 2.5 tries per game on average.

Even with 33 tries in 10 Tests this season, the TRC figure within comprises 21 from six games, for 3.5 tries a game. In theory, the attack would appear to be on the up.

But only four tries in the last two weeks against NZ, and only Len Ikitau’s sneaky ruck try in Perth, highlights that things aren’t quite as rosy as they might appear.

The attack has shown glimpses of clicking, and it’s worth mentioning that of Australia’s eight players to have crossed for more than one try this season, five of them are outside backs scoring in the wider channels. So clearly, the attack has had plenty of moments.

But here’s another point worth mentioning: the Wallabies have used seven different starting half-back pairings this season, plus another four unique pairings off the bench. That number would be five if Tane Edmed had got on alongside Ryan Lonergan in Auckland, although that duo did have 15 minutes together in Perth before James O’Connor replaced Edmed at 10 late on.

So that is 11 – or briefly 12 – different pairings on the field in 10 Tests. A different game-managing pair on the field every game. It’s no wonder the attack still looks patchy.

Yes, a majority of those changes have been injury-forced. I’m quite sure if asked for an ideal number of pairings he would like to have used across those 10 Tests, Joe Schmidt would come up with a figure well below 11. It’s a lot of change in not very much time, and it’s got to have a significant impact.

So in hindsight, maybe just having fit players is the first step toward a more integrated and connected attack.

What else, then?

The number of skill errors creeping in in recent weeks has been concerning, as has some of the decision-making, both of which are driving the questions among supporters of whether the trendline really is pointing up.

The question is whether they’re at the same point they were coming out of the Lions series and whether that Ellis Park result can be metaphorically reached again, or whether it’s consigned to be an historic, but memorable, outlier.

Then there’s the matter of the Schmidt-Les Kiss transition – both in terms of what that looks like in 2026, but also whether it is going to be proactive enough, if Kiss insists on staying well beyond arms-length away through the November internationals, as has been reported.

And really looking ahead, the question of ‘where are they now?’ then becomes ‘where can they get to?’ by the 2027 Rugby World Cup on home soil. Just to ram that point home, there are maybe only 25 or so Tests between now and then.

I have no doubt the Wallabies are in a better position than at the end of 2024, and they’re definitely a better team than what took the field in Newcastle against Fiji for the first Test of the year.

The question is whether they’re at the same point they were coming out of the Lions series and then enjoying success in South Africa – and whether that Ellis Park result can be metaphorically reached again, or whether it’s consigned to be an historic, but memorable, outlier.

Perhaps we will find out more answers in November.