Billy Bush by Bill Bush

Author:Bill Bush
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mower

They say one thing that’ll fire up any team is their opponents publicly claiming a match is won before it begins, but that’s what happened to our All Blacks side in Australia in 1979.

In those days the Bledisloe Cup was almost a non-event for Kiwis, as we basically had always held it. In July ’79 we headed to Australia for two games, a warm-up against Queensland B, at Ballymore in Brisbane, and then a test against Australia at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

The Bledisloe Cup came across the Tasman too, and unfortunately a telegram from New Zealand giving details of which flight it was on, and where it had to be delivered, was leaked to the Aussie media. It said: ‘One large black box containing Bledisloe Cup required for yr promotional purposes during All Blacks annihilation of Wallabies on Sat.’ Whoever thought that was a good joke deserved to be at the bottom of a Wallabies ruck in the test!

The warm-up game went smoothly, and we beat Queensland B, 35–3. That match was followed by what would prove to be my last international appearance for the All Blacks.

The Bledisloe Cup test was the culmination of five years of rebuilding work by the Aussies. During the game we missed our veteran lock, Frank Oliver. His replacement, Mike McCool, who had shaped up in the Brisbane game, found it difficult against the experienced Wallaby second-rowers.

The Wallabies seldom moved the ball and concentrated on playing a percentage game, driving us back with long diagonal kicks. As such, the game became one of attrition.

I was playing out of my normal position and was on the loosehead side of the scrum at No. 1. The result was that the Wallabies had a decided edge in the scums, and they outpointed us at rucks and mauls.

Their lineouts were also better organised, spoiling a lot of our possession, and never letting us settle. What possession we did get we attempted to continually move through our backs, but here our handling let us down. Mark Donaldson being on the back foot at halfback with the problems we were having in the forwards didn’t help with clean ball either.

We lost 12–6 in a try-less game with the Wallabies securing the Bledisloe for the first time since Trevor Allan and his Australian side had won the two-test series in New Zealand back in 1949. It was even sweeter for them as it was their first Bledisloe Cup test victory on Australian soil since 1934.

The Wallabies’ coach, Dave Brockhoff, was an interesting guy. A former Wallaby loose forward himself, he recalled that facing the All Blacks doing their haka he had always been passionately moved, and it made him respect his Australian heritage even more. He knew the haka contributed to our physical and mental supremacy.

‘I wondered, why can’t our Aboriginals give me a war dance?’ he said. ‘So often have I cherished the All Blacks because they play 10 feet taller in the black jumper. The haka is not embedded in the cloth, but in the cloth of the mind.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.