Chris Rattue: Aussies won't win World Cup

A rampant Ma'a Nonu breaks Wallaby hearts with this try. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Final Tri-Nations standings

You can scrub this Wallaby team as World Cup winners.

There's more chance of waking up to find a decent stadium floating at the waterfront and an Auckland cabbie who knows how to get there than of Robbie Deans' powder puffs lifting the Webb Ellis Cup.

Saturday night's performance in Wellington was one of the worst transtasman capitulations you will see from an Aussie sports side and their red-faced rugby mob will be having nightmares about it as the flamboyant NRL and AFL hit the high notes.

Australia's rugby ego collapsed quicker than all those horrible scrums that went down.

The country, which has produced Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Ricky Stuart, Wayne Bennett and all those other long-faced sporting scrappers, gave the rugby world a good old laugh as the green 'n yellows turned it up against what has been a lukewarm All Black outfit. You'd find more spine in a worm farm convention. Robbie's Rollovers need a mass heart transplant.

Make no mistake. The Wallabies remain capable of an upset here and there, such as their storming win over the Springboks in Brisbane. They could easily break All Black hearts come World Cup time. They will remain World Cup wild cards.

But Aussie World Cup supporters should forget making any long-term discount bookings in Auckland and stick to the overnight room rates.

These Wallabies don't have the heart or the muscle for a series of vigorous physical battles, and that's what you need to win a World Cup. And even two more years of maturing won't change that, because the Ockers just don't have the roughhouse raw product to work with.

Forget the fancy panel paint because the World Cup is all about the engine and the boot.

That's what a fine English team showed in 2003, and a useless one with a caretaker coach - as in a bloke who looked like the school caretaker - reiterated to everyone's amazement four years later.

As for the Springboks, they didn't win the 2007 tournament on fancy tricks.

Line these Wallabies up in consecutive games against say New Zealand, England and South Africa, and they'll be shredded like a corporate document before an investigator's raid.

Clever resilience can only go so far when you are getting beaten up each week. Australia's soft belly was rumbled on Saturday night.

In contrast, the All Black coaches have been given a temporary reprieve by their players' vigorous performance at Westpac Stadium which has also given the fans a wee bit of long-term hope.

The All Black players were given a bigger hand in running proceedings last week, and perhaps freed from their masters' mad scheming they looked fresher for it.

Richie McCaw responded superbly with the pressure on. But the All Blacks' intentions were best summed up by Adam Thomson and Ma'a Nonu as referee Craig Joubert gave them a licence to kill the Wallaby frills.

Nonu, old hand-signalling butterfingers himself, barrelled Aussies who were barely in the same suburb as the ball, while Thomson stood wherever he pleased in rucks.

And the Aussies stood by and let them get away with it.

The biff has been taken out of rugby but that doesn't mean test footballers are supposed to run around like Paddy O'Brien on a coaching course. Rugby rules are only a rough guide at the best of times and test match rugby is a game in which you set out to bend them until the opposition breaks.

It didn't take much to knock over these Wallaby wimps.

Most of them looked like George Gregan in his retirement tour years - only the immaculate Berrick Barnes and powerful Adam Ashley-Cooper appeared world class and to my mind, the Tri-Nations has shown Matt Giteau to be overrated as a test No 10.

Giteau has a major problem to overcome playing behind the Mild Bunch, but he doesn't take command the way the millionaire linchpin of Aussie rugby should. The real problem is up front, though.

You wouldn't give two bob for their forwards who were chewed up and spat out by an All Black eight that contains a couple of stars and also a few journeymen.

Rocky Elsom gives Australia a bit of hope, but he's a lone wrecking ball and a bit clumsy with it at times.

Deans must be furious, and questions have to be asked whether his methodical ways are pulling enough heart strings with over-matched men who are not his compatriots.

Deans' claim that the Wallabies capitulated after the game was lost - something that made his blood boil - is way off the mark. They'd packed up their tents way before then.

Cory Jane was an absolute star for the All Blacks, which gives Graham Henry a problem down the road. As Henry showed at the World Cup when he overlooked the in-form Doug Howlett, he has a penchant for hot 'n cold Joe Rokocoko and Sitiveni Sivivatu.

Jane showed the value of a classy, committed wing you can rely on to complement one of the fabulous Fijian flakes.

But Henry's problems are luxuries compared with those faced by Deans.

So long as McCaw remains fit, Henry's spluttering team is in with a chance in any game. Not so George Smith and co. Too many in this Wallaby side are too young, too weak or substandard.

Deans is reportedly scouring the club ranks for survivors in the school of hard knocks, and he'll be desperate to uncover an angry Incredible Hulk or two prepared to proudly wear green and gold on the chest.

At the moment, a new recruit is the Melbourne Storm league centre Will Chambers who will return to Brisbane rugby next season.

Aussie rugby is adept at poaching league backs, but that won't stop them getting fried in the forwards.

Here's one for the oldies. Newly promoted Burnley continued their fairytale beginning to the English football premiership with a victory over Sunderland, their opening goal provided from the penalty spot by midfielder Graham Alexander, a member of the Scotland squad.

Alexander, after years of battling away for small clubs while hoping to get a shot in the big time, got to make his debut in the premiership this year at the age of 37.

The converted defender played just about every minute in all 61 of Burnley's games last year, plus five further matches for Scotland. He attributes his longevity to training hard every day.

There is hope for the ancient Warrior, Steve Price, yet.