I’ll tell you why these Wallabies are genuinely a threat to end Eden Park curse

October 10, 2026 — 5:00am

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The Wallabies vs All Blacks Test this evening at Eden Park? Bring it on, bubba. I don’t say we are going to win it. I don’t even say that my Kiwi friends are nervous.

I do say they are unaccustomedly ... wary. Every day for the last fortnight, text after text, call after call, email after email has a similar theme. Say, Fitz, these Wallabies lately look ... different.

Yes. I know. A [W] after their name in five of their last six matches, with the other one a draw, does that to a team.

But, more than that, it’s because of the confident way they are playing, the clear capacity they display in the forwards to win their set pieces and then do serious damage in the forward thrusts. In the backs we’re seeing lots of derring-do, derring-done on the fly, in scintillating fashion! In the air, Max Jorgensen has been imperial, while Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has at last been unleashed.

It’s also because while in previous years our blokes have found more creative ways to lose just when they had the game in hand, lately it’s gone the other way. They’ve found the way to win right when everything was going to hell in a handcart. (Four yellow cards in 10 minutes? No problem. Play on!)

And it’s because a fortnight ago they were on their way to putting 50 points on the Springboks, before those four yellow cards did indeed drop. I repeat: 50 points! Against the back-to-back world champions.

I repeat-repeat. I don’t say we are going to win and get a little pinkie on the Bledisloe Cup itself. After all, when you are playing an All Blacks side at Eden Park that hasn’t lost at that venue in the last 53 Tests, and Australia hasn’t beaten them there in 40 years, you have to figure that, as we say in the trade, “shits is trumps on the blind”.

But there is no way around it. These Wallabies are looking more genuinely dangerous to the All Black domination than they have for a quarter-of-a-century.

Can’t wait. I told you: Bring it on, Bubba!

Listen, the capacity of rugby league to come up with one-point margins is extraordinary and to be commended. But let’s be frank. Last Sunday’s effort didn’t remotely cut it as a grand final for the ages. Phil Gould called it “the most dominant one-point game” he’d ever seen, and it was that.

For compare to the drama of Sunday’s effort to the last one-point NRL grand final in 2015. I can still see it now. Can’t you? The Cowboys were behind by four points with seconds left on the clock in regulation time, against the........

© The Sydney Morning Herald