The bear has been poked ahead of the All Blacks’ return to their spiritual home at Eden Park, but Wallabies assistant Geoff Parling says Bledisloe II will come down to their “mindset”.
On the back of last Sunday’s colossal 89-minute effort in windy Wellington, which finished in a dramatic 16-16 draw, the great question is whether the Wallabies can back up their inspired first Test performance under new coach Dave Rennie.
Where the All Blacks are expected to inject some new personnel into their team, the Wallabies – it is thought – don’t have that same Test ready depth to call upon.
But Parling, the former Lions winner who also played 29 Tests for England, including two against the All Blacks where they were pipped in New Zealand in 2014, believes the Wallabies can rise to the occasion.
“I think it depends on your mindset,” Parling said, on the ability to lift again.
“If you tell yourself it's tough, it's going to be tough. But if you tell yourself you're about to play New Zealand in Auckland, you should be OK.
“It's the same for both teams. I wouldn't read into things more than they are. We've played a hard Test match, some guys have played some long minutes, so have they. We'll get guys fresh, make sure we recover and we'll get prepped and go again this week.”
The All Blacks might not have lost, but all week senior figures have slammed their uncharacteristic sloppy performance, where they were out-enthused and turned the ball over regularly.
With a brand new coaching team of their own, too, tensions are high over in the Shaky Isles and unsurprisingly assistant coach John Plumtree attempted on Wednesday to turn the attention off their own performance and on to the officials overseeing Sunday’s second Test in Auckland.
The Wallabies are bracing for a response.
They’ve seen this script too often not to expect the All Blacks to come out breathing fire like last year, where they overturned a record loss in Perth to smash the Wallabies 36-0 a week later at Eden Park to retain the Bledisloe Cup for the 17th straight year.
Parling, however, doesn’t see the fuss about Eden Park, where the All Blacks haven’t lost since 1994 and against the Wallabies since Alan Jones’ side won 22-9 in 1986.
His England side were beaten by a Conrad Smith try in the 78th minute at the venue in 2014 and backed up the performance by going down by a single point a week later in Dunedin.
“It's certainly not, no,” Parling responded after being asked whether the venue was particularly scary.
“It's just a rugby pitch.”
In the fallout of Sunday’s Test, Ian Foster is said to be strongly considering starting Beauden Barrett – should he be fit – at fly-half and dropping Richie Mo’unga to the bench.
If that is to occur, it would be an admission that the All Blacks selectors got it wrong after selecting Barrett at fullback, before his withdrawal on the eve of the match with an Achilles injury.
While acknowledging the threat of Barrett, Parling said whoever the All Blacks put out on the field would be a danger.
“He's obviously a good player, but the other guys that are in there are good players so I wouldn't make it more than what it is if he comes back in,” Parling said.
“He'll be replacing someone else who is a very good player.
“In terms of forwards nullifying him, we can do our job up front and try to reduce the quality of ball he has can certainly help.”
Bledisloe I was Parling’s first Test as a coach, after the former English lock suddenly found himself as the Wallabies’ forwards assistant following the decision by Brumbies coach Dan McKellar to prioritise the Australian Super Rugby side and Laurie Fisher’s unavailability.
Parling said he “loved the experience” but lamented what could have been a famous win across the ditch.
“The Test match day goes quickly. I always found as a player in Test matches that the day can drag a bit because you just went to get on with the game, but coaching it goes a lot quicker. And after the games as a player I found that you couldn't sleep, you were up to 3 or 4 no matter what happens, whereas after games as a coach I feel quite drained,” he said.
“It was a great experience, but also incredibly frustrating because it would have also been my first chance to coach a Test match game and our first chance as a squad to win, and we had some good chances to win that game but maybe some chances that we should have taken. Mixed feelings. Incredibly proud to be a part of it, but it could have been better.”
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Two areas the Wallabies must improve on are at the lineout and the maul.
The Wallabies’ lineout struggled in the first half, where hooker Folau Fainga’a lost three important throws but Parling said it wasn’t just his side that struggled with the set-piece.
“We obviously lost three in the first half, the issue there was what came off those three; big moment loses because they ended up going down the end of the pitch from one, eventually scoring, the other one was that overthrow in the four man,” he said.
“But they lost two in the second half, so I thought they handled the pressure well in the second half.”
One area that Parling did, however, say they must improve was at the breakdown.
“That is an area we need to be better at,” Parling said.
“We know that if we want to play with the ball and have quality ball we've got to be good in that area. I thought at times we were just a little bit slow to react, so there's more of an awareness around it this week.”
