Wallabies fail to walk the walk
Wallabies coach Robbie Deans has accused his brash youngsters of getting well ahead of themselves in their pre-Bledisloe chat after they failed to walk the walk at Eden Park.
Australia certainly talked the talk in the fortnight leading up to Saturday night's 30-14 Tri-Nations reality check in Auckland, with their confidence getting under the skin of the All Blacks.
It prompted New Zealand assistant coach Steve Hansen to suggest they didn't respect the world's No.1-ranked team.
While Deans dismissed that view as "nonsense", he did admit their confidence was over the top.
He was smarting after the disappointing display, where a number of his exciting backline and young guns failed to live up to their hype.
Asked whether his players had carried their confidence with the right tone leading up to the match, Deans said: "No, I would suggest our blokes got ahead of themselves when you look at the way we played.
"I don't agree with the suggestion. It's nonsense in terms of a lack of respect.
"(But) the decisions we made would suggest we didn't enter the game in the right frame of mind."
Former All Blacks skipper Taine Randell said the Australian talk only served to fire up the Kiwis to make a major pre-World Cup statement.
"You could sense the steely determination by the All Blacks - this was personal," he wrote in New Zealand's Sunday News.
"Listening to that talk, you could be fooled into thinking this was going to be an even contest.
"They were so dominant over the Wallabies at Eden Park this really was a case of men against boys in the end.
"It proved again that Super Rugby - a la the Reds - is one thing; in Test matches, you have to be good right across the park and tougher than your opponents."
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