The game highlighted a few points.
- How valuable Stephen Moore is. For one thing he can throw straight, he's good around the park and the scrum is better with him there.
- How valuable Pocock is. Our rucking didn't look nearly as good without him
- How important it is to not have to change a team just before the game. At least some of the disjointed play was due to that.
- Australia still isn't good against northern hemisphere style play. We looked all at sea against the rolling maul and we'd prefer to defend against a team that plays with ball in hand than a kick and chase style. How many bombs did we spill?
- How important it is to get our pick and drive game working. Ireland mostly nullified it and so our backs didn't get any room to move.
I'm trying to find a silver lining and it may be that we are unlikely to face a northern hemisphere team in the quarter and semifinals (assuming we get that far - an upset by the USA isn't entirely out of the question). At the moment we seem to have SA covered, but of course they have just had a lot of quality players return from injury. If we have to play NZ it is probably better in the semi than in the final. They'll be bloody near unbeatable in the semi but they'd be 10 times harder to beat in the final.
I suppose I had better adopt the Irish as my second favourite team. After all there is less shame in being beaten by the team that go on to win the tournament.
