Holy crap, Christmas has come early! Not only did Santa deliver a convincing win against the Aussies at Twickenham (well eventually it was), Aussie coach – the one coaching the Aussie team – Michael Cheika, had an absolute fricking meltdown. Think three-year-old spoilt brat kicking off in Sainsburys and you’d be pretty close to the mark. When he marched down to the pitch-side, I Wondered if he was going to keep going, pick up the ball and insist on taking it home.
The brunt of Cheika’s strop was a series of close calls that all went against the men in dirty-yellow. Outside Australia, most reports on the game will point out that whilst one of those decisions may have been a little harsh, all were in fact completely correct calls from young Kiwi ref Ben O’Keeffe. With ten minutes to go and the score at 13-6, Marika Koroibete went over to give the Aussies a chance of levelling the score. But after a long-period of replay-watching, which threatened to cause a headache for anyone expecting to get home using public transport, O’Keeffe ruled that Stephen Moore had obstructed Chris Robshaw and prevented him from attempting to stop Koroibete. Result, the try was ruled out and Australia gave up, conceding three tries before the final whistle.
I’ll concede the scoreline flattered England a little, but if the situation was reversed, the Aussies wouldn’t have shown mercy or have conceded any points, so I’ll remember this as the slaughtering it statistically was.