ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The Wallabies went down to Scotland again last weekend, which is unfortunate, especially when coupled with a rather unsavoury defeat against the English the week before.
But that's all in the rear-view mirror now, and there's little point dwelling on it. Coach Les Kiss went into both matches with a fairly straightforward plan to score more points than the opposition while limiting the number of points scored against us. Ultimately, neither plan worked out, which is fine, because next week we might flog Wales by 30.
That's just how rugby union works. There is a strange law in rugby league's softly spoken, necktie-wearing cousin where the events of the previous match seem to have absolutely no bearing on what happens in the next.
Take Wales, for example. The Welsh are currently humming. They've just beaten the All Blacks for the first time since 1953, when Queen Elizabeth II was crowned and Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first situationship to climb Mount Everest together. Yeah, that chapter in Peter Fitzsimmons' new book on the ascent was pretty eye opening. But it was a different world back then, and for the next 73 years, beating the All Blacks was something the Welsh could only really discuss in the context of mythology.
Now they've finally done it. They've conquered the All Blacks, the so-called "most formidable side in world sport" and will no doubt be feeling themselves.
Which is precisely why the Wallabies will probably flog them next weekend. It makes no sense. Little in international rugby union does.
A team can look utterly lost against Scotland, get dismembered by the Poms and then turn up the following weekend playing like they've just been told they're walking home from Cardiff if they lose. And nobody will be particularly surprised.
Despite our shoddy track record of bizarre defeats and fabled wins, there's really no result next week that would shock anyone who follows the game as intently as the Australian rugby fan. The Wallabies could win by 30, and the commentators will explain that the signs were there all along. Or Wales could put 50 on us, and those same commentators will explain that this was always going to happen.
Either way, the result will be digested and dissected by people who believe their opinions on the matter have some bearing on what happens next. But they don't. Because next week is a new week, and anything could happen. That's just how the game works.
More to come.
