The 310 seconds of All Blacks defence that should give Wallabies fans hope

Scott McLeod got knocked out in his one and only Bledisloe Cup Test as an All Black, but he has never forgotten the score – or how the Wallabies played.

The year was 1998, and a resurgent Australian side downed the Kiwis 24-16 at the MCG, with Matt Burke scoring all 24 points. McLeod was in the ninth game of his 10-Test career, and playing at outside centre, up against Tim Horan and Daniel Herbert.

“I got knocked out, came off and thought this is a big place, where am I? And then I saw the score,” McLeod said.

“I remember in the game they had a barrage against us. They played quick, their running lines and their speed and handling, they were just on top of us the whole time. And that’s etched firmly in my mind around Australian rugby.”

The Wallabies went on to win the Bledisloe Cup series 3-0, and then a year later, the 1999 Rugby World Cup as well.

McLeod later moved into coaching, and he made it back to the All Blacks, serving as defence coach between 2018 and 2023. This year he became the latest Kiwi to cross the Tasman and recently joined the Wallabies staff under new head coach Les Kiss.

Ahead of his first game in Wallabies colours, in Osaka on Saturday, McLeod has been a busy man. After observing with Kiss in July, the 53-year-old, known as “Stormy”, got down to business last week in Sydney, starting the process of reshaping Australia’s defence.

It is one of the most significant changes planned for the Kiss era, with the World Cup 422 days away.

As a defence coach, it would be easy to imagine McLeod highlighting that aspect of the game as the foundation of the Wallabies’ last World Cup win in 1999. They only conceded one try all tournament.

But as a believer in defence and attack being symbiotic, McLeod offers a different stat.

“I look at the ’99 World Cup and Australia scored 24 tries,” he said. “And the last World Cup, they scored 11. You want to get back to that, that mentality of using skill, using our speed, using the athletes that we have to express ourselves.

“They’re multi-sports athletes, aren’t they? They grow up playing cricket and rugby and Aussie rules and all sorts of stuff. So they’ve got skills, and we need to utilise that.

“Then that flows into defence. The excitement of that and putting pressure on teams, and them feeling under pressure, then your defence becomes almost easy. Yep, there’s areas of the game defensively we’re going to focus on and work hard on.

“Some of the areas particularly around [defensive] skill, I’m really focused on. And then just being connected enough and caring and having that right attitude for each other.”

McLeod’s journey to the Wallabies was inspired by a discussion with Joe Schmidt at the start of the year, as the All Blacks were replacing Scott Robertson. McLeod had been coaching with Kubota in Japan for the past two years and was on Jamie Joseph’s ticket. But Dave Rennie got the nod as New Zealand coach.

Schmidt asked if McLeod would still be open to an international return, with Australia. That led to conversations with Kiss and other Rugby Australia officials, and before long, a new job with the Wallabies. McLeod coached against Australia many times, and had thoughts.

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think I could help,” he said. “And now having had the last two weeks with the team, that gets me excited as well, because those areas that I’ve seen, now I’ve seen it working, and now this is what I think I could do.

“Talking to the other coaches and some of the players and the leaders, they’re all on board with that. They have bought in to the direction I want to take it.”

Changing the Wallabies’ defence midway through a Test winter is, of course, risky. It’s like fixing an aircraft’s engine while 10,000 feet in the air.

McLeod knows this, and duly has set a maintenance schedule based on gradual change.

“I’ve picked a couple of skill set things and one structural thing just to focus on for these first few Tests,” he said. “And depending on how we go, probably into Argentina as well. If we get really good at those, then we can do a little bit more evolution.”

The encouraging part for Wallabies fans is that McLeod has done the airplane fix before, and recently.

In 2022, after Ireland had beaten the Kiwis in a series in New Zealand for the first time, the All Blacks sensed they had to adapt for the 2023 World Cup or die.

“The world changed, as far as attacking shape,” he said. “Ireland did a good job on us at home and taught us a lesson there. So I thought going forward to the World Cup, we just can’t defend with the same principles.”

The All Blacks evolved, and met Ireland again in the quarter-final. Needing a try to win in the last six minutes, Ireland attacked for 36 consecutive phases but for 310 leg-sapping seconds the All Blacks didn’t yield, or concede a penalty.

“We just kept executing and executing and executing,” McLeod said. “We made really good decisions. That block of phases seemed to go on forever.”

Does all that give McLeod confidence about the scope to evolve the Wallabies’ defence in time for the 2027 World Cup, too?

“It’s not going to happen overnight. It’s not going to happen immediately,” McLeod said. “But the uptake I’ve seen already in 10 days … yeah, it is good. It gives me confidence.”