The Wallabies are much improved under Les Kiss. But one key area is costing them dearly

October 17, 2026 — 5:00am

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“Sine qua non,” is one of those Latin phrases I like to confidently toss about as if I studied the language and know their meaning backwards. In extremis, I do it ad infinitum, ad hoc, on and on into the ever et cetera.

But what I think it means is the “essential prerequisite” for something to occur. And how funny I should say that. For my reckoning is that – consults Google to find the plural of the Latin phrase in question – the sine quibus non for beating the All Blacks are things like winning your own lineouts and scrums, not missing tackles and ... not allowing the ball to bounce when your opposition does endless box kicks.

There has been endless analysis of what went wrong last Saturday night at Eden Park in Australia’s 50-19 loss to the All Blacks – and personally, I had to put another man on – all of them on the money. But THE sine qua non to beat them all was that the Wallabies constantly allowed the ball to bounce. There appeared to be confusion just about every time the ball went up, when nobody shouted “MINE!”

True, nobody actually shouted “YOURS”, but that was the vibe of the thing. This afternoon at Homebush we’ll know in the first 10 minutes if we are any chance of winning Bledisloe II. They’ll put up box kicks until our noses bleed as their new and devastating tactic is to boot it high but not long, so they can flood the landing zone with rampaging rushers.

Look to the potential receivers on our side. Are they red-hot keen to give it their all to take it, or are they hanging back? If the latter, we are wasting our time.

The Wallabies have come on in leaps and bounds in recent times, and for years have had a struggling lineout and struggling scrum, making it all but impossible to win consistently. Manifestly, those things have been fixed. Our scrum is solid. Our lineout is regularly capable of stealing the ball off the opposition.

On a good day, our backs are creative and skilled enough to slice through even the best international defences. We’ve seen it. But if they don’t counter the high ball and put their bodies on the line to secure it, the whole thing is beside the point.

Time to give kicking the boot

Beyond all that? Well, beyond all that the actual quality of the Test match was on a par with the NRL grand final. There were simply way too many kicks to properly engage with it. The best football matches turn on what happens with the ball in hand, not on the........

© The Sydney Morning Herald