Rugby videos of tackles, tries, funny incidents and more: Huge Wallaby defence vs France in 2004

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Huge Wallaby defence vs France in 2004

Not too long ago we posted a clip of the huge All Black defence rocking the Wallabies from a few years back.

This time, it's the Wallabies doing the hard graft against France in Paris in 2004, showing us exactly how it's done.

In the early stages of the game, they manage to get a huge psychological edge over the opposition by putting in some huge, impenetrable offensive defence. Gang tackling, and pumping the legs to drive players back, this type of defence can be soul destroying, especially so early on in the game.

Note how France actually go backwards, particularly after tigerish Phil Waugh's big tackle.

Awesome defence, what was the result of this game?

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 3:14 pm
Wasn't the first tackle a spear tackle? Therefore illegal?

That second tackle was awesome... he pumped him back a good distance there!

Awesome Tackles!

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 3:25 pm
that is world class defence there.. but wasn't the first one a spear tackle?

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 4:07 pm
John F:

27 France 14 Australia
( 13 November 2004 )

That is huge defense by the Wallabies.. loving it!

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 4:07 pm
I agree, the first one was kind of a spear one... but I really liked Phil Waugh's tackle

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 4:31 pm
ha awesome tackles!
wallabies have always had excellent defence

By James, at April 01, 2008 4:52 pm
Taking nothing away from the defence but I believe had that happened in todays game then the first tackle would be penalised and the tackler would potentially be yellow carded.

I think they really started clamping down on spear tackling after the Lions tour of New Zealand with the whole O'Driscoll thing so I guess in 2004 spear tackling wasnt a big deal? I may be wrong though.

Great defence nonetheless

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 4:55 pm
Great comment Anonymous. Next time use a nickname to get proper credit for it...

But yes, you're right, spear tackles have been clamped on so much now, possibly to the point of insanity. A lot of tackles are being labelled as 'dangerous' when they're in fact not. The game is close to becoming soft, which I'm sure our friends over in league are loving.

That said, great hit by Waugh, and excellent defence in general.

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 5:30 pm
Spear tackle much??!?!?

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 6:29 pm
That anonymous post was done by me, Sharky. Was first post on here so wasnt really sure of the procedure..am trying to sign up now.

Not only are many tackles being wrongly clamped down on, but now it seems that any spear tackle results in an immediate yellow card for the tackler. The rugby environment is so intense that quite often people can get carried away and can quite easily take a dump tackle slightly over the top as what happened in this Aus-France game and, rightly or wrongly, players are getting penalised for this. I admit many are dangerous but many tackles are so quickly seen as spear tackles, and I think there should an acknowledgement that some are more dangerous than others.

The reaction of commentators has also greatly changed as there was no mention at all of that tackle being anywhere near dangerous.

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 6:33 pm
Did we need to go back a few years to show some tough tackling because, as others have already said, this sort of tackle is being slowly eroded from the game?

I'm all for protection of players, but Rugby is a mans game, and strong hard tackles are one of the reasons why we love it so much.

I think now it's so drilled in to the officials that they automatically call a foul, and as someone else commented, then consider a yellow card. Instead they should be thinking hard whether it was a foul in the first place.

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 7:07 pm
Awesome defence...the spear tackle at the beginning...not so cool.

By Don, at April 01, 2008 9:15 pm
the spear tackle wasnt very nice, but as my trainer once said "you can get away with anything in the first ten minutes" because referees often dont want to make game altering decisioons early on.

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 9:39 pm
Anonymous four up... You don't even need to sign up actually. All you need to do is click the check box (circle) where it says Name/URL and type in a name you want to use there. That's how I do it. :)

By Anonymous, at April 01, 2008 9:57 pm
the majority of spear tackes now are caused by a defender going for a dump tackle and taking the man off his feet, then a second defender coming in on the angle (from the drift) and knocking the attacker sideways causing him to rotate out of the control of the initial tackler who lifted him. Can be seen to best effect in the Gregan spear video

By Anonymous, at April 02, 2008 10:48 am
spear tackle's are a a spur of the moment thing. I think players making the spear tackle should only be penalised if the player being tackled gets injured.

By Anonymous, at April 02, 2008 10:48 am
With that last post, you'd have the players pretending they're injured...so I don't think it is a good way to solve things, unless you want to make it look like ...soccer ;)
Little question : shouldn't Waugh get a penalty for not coming out of the rock ? You can clearly see that Betsen can't rock because of him...

By jay, at April 02, 2008 11:04 am
Hard tackles are part of the game, and its slowly being softened up. He wasn't really driven into the ground, which is the condition of a union spear tackle. In league its past horizontal, but not in union. Was he guided? Maybe, a little. But lets not all get upset over the tackles. After all, it's not netball.

By Anonymous, at April 03, 2008 2:04 am
And that's why Australia are so good. Agression, technique and guts.

I love it when England beat them, because they're quality. I can't believe that such a small population can produce such an amazing cricket team, rugby team and seemingly every other sport!

By Anonymous, at April 03, 2008 8:16 am
Yeah, great defense but they still lost the game.

By Anonymous, at April 03, 2008 7:59 pm
I actually watched the whole game a few weeks ago. Great defence from the Wallabies, sure, which appearently wasn't enough to win though. But what really struck me was the overall level of the game. Both teams seemed much, much better than they are in 2007/2008. England would never have made it to the RWC 2007 final if Australia and France had managed to keep this quality. Obviously something went very wrong with the preparation and selection process in both countries.

By Anonymous, at April 04, 2008 2:57 pm
one simple word: offside

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