Overnight in Marseilles, France, the Australian Rugby Union team bowed out of the 2007 Rugby World Cup to make room for better teams.
Yes, this was a pretty bittersweet blog post to have to write, but the team which has lacked cohesion throughout the year (let alone the tournament) never showed much promise after cruising through their pool matches.
You can probably fault John Connelly for not getting his ‘A’ squad onto the park during those pool matches or argue that since England has had to fight for its life on numerous occasions during the RWC07 that they were a more hungry team, but at the end of the day the Wallabies simply could not produce.
There were some bright spots, namely some of the backline players like Latham, Drew Mitchell and Tuquri, but far too many players simply didn’t show up.
The forwards let England beat the psychologically and were continually late to the breakdown. We clearly missed Stephen Larkham at five eighth, Barrick Barnes is no Stephen Larkham – yet.
Time to lick wounds, go home and start grooming the team for 2011. Oh, and start supporting any team playing against England 🙂
