So
this weekend we play the Springboks for the bronze medal in the current Rugby
order – and let’s be thankful we haven’t met a real England side lately, or
even Argentina on their home turf.

There
are good things happening under Knuckles Connolly but they will take time –
every minute up to the World Cup quarter finals next year. In the meantime,
well, the All Blacks were great,
the Wallabies were not.

If
you had to pick an Anzac side on Saturday night, Chris Latham might get in
while George Smith, Bernie Larkham and maybe Lote Tuqiri would make the bench. We
could ask if the two remaining Bledisloe games could be played against North
Island and South Island teams. NZ would still keep the silverware.

The
upside is that the Wallabies will be better for the thrashing. If NZ had been
less comprehensively superior and Australia had lost narrowly, there would have
been plenty of whingeing about the dud refereeing (Jonathan Kaplan must be
looking for a soccer gig) and the Wallabies might think they’re close to the
pace.

They’re
not. NZ and France are in a different class. The many selection experiments can
continue a little longer but then it’s down to very hard mental and physical
work to try to catch them in the World Cup finals.

Several
things have to happen, starting with Rodney Blake’s ankle recovering and trying
Sam Cordingly as the run-on half against the All Blacks. It’s galling for
ex-coach Eddie Jones of all people to be proven correct
about the back row not being right yet, but that’s to be sorted as part of the
general rocket up the forwards.

At
least there was some good talent for 2011 on display in the schoolboys
championship that finished yesterday, but Queensland II players must feel hard
done by. They won the championship but had only one player picked in the
Australian team. Are the selectors saying the coach did all the work?