The Wallabies win that underlines why scores don’t need pictures

Well, the Wallabies won. Australian rugby fans and the Wallabies coaching team all breathed a collective sigh of relief. The new era of the team has begun with a win, even if that win had a few hairs on it.

There’s no doubt they had to work hard for the 35-32 win and there will be a well-earned degree of satisfaction that comes with that. Any win away from home in a bilateral series presents a good reason to be returning home with confidence.

I think that’s what might have pleased Les Kiss the most, that the Wallabies were able to repel multiple Japanese comebacks. Each time they were able to find a score themselves, which meant Japan were always chasing the game – and this meant they were just as guilty of turnovers and handling errors as the Wallabies were.

The scoreline was a good reflection of the contest throughout and ultimately, Australia could rightly say they were just that little bit better and won accordingly.

But they will also know themselves that it was a long way from convincing, and it was awfully hard to disagree with anything Geoff wrote yesterday.

It’s why one of the first things I scribbled down before Saturday night’s Post-Mortem recording was the old adage that “you don’t have to draw a picture”, and this was certainly one of those games were the pictures wouldn’t have made much sense anyway.

With the win secured, you presume the Australians earned first choice and seating priority for the charter flight they shared with the Japan squad back to Brisbane on Sunday. They’ll prepare for Saturday night’s Test in familiar surrounds for much of the Wallabies contingent, before heading north to Townsville later in the next day or two.

But you’d also imagine the Osaka review would have made for tough viewing.