Deans' head on the block

"Saturday was branded as the start of something new, but it looked like an ending."

Judging by that statement, all it took for the Australian media to panic was one defeat to the All Blacks.

The 27-19 defeat was not necessarily a thrashing, but it still led Mark Ella to say "10 more years, boys!" to a team which last won the Bledisloe Cup a decade ago.

The Aussies are a bit like us in a sense - they see winning at rugby as some kind of God-given right. And so coach Robbie Deans is under the cosh before the Four Nations has even properly started.

This is despite the fact that the New Zealander has improved the Wallaby side since taking over in 2008.

The Aussies, the No2-ranked team in the world, have beaten the Springboks five out of the last six times they have played one another, and if they beat Heyneke Meyer's men in Perth it will be their best-ever run against the Boks.

Wales, who are the best they have ever been in the professional era, have also come in for punishment, shipping seven games out of seven during a period in which they have won two Grand Slams.

And World Cup finalists France have also been dispatched five times in succession, which is either a sign of a team that is at worst consistent and at best improving.

But what sticks in the throats of the Ellas of this world is the Wallabies' record against the All Blacks.

The Aussies managed to burgle the Tri-Nations against them last year, but the All Blacks appear to have a mental hold on them.

That the All Blacks basically have the same hold on the rest of the free world simply because they are the best team in the world appears to escape the Aussies.

The pressure on Deans comes from three basic things: his failure to take over the world; his struggle to beat the All Blacks, and his being a New Zealander, when the Aussies have what they consider a ready-made replacement in Reds coach Ewen McKenzie.

But there are mitigating circumstances in his favour.

With an average age of 25, the Wallabies are still neck-and-neck with Wales as the youngest team in international rugby.

This means they are three years away from the age at which teams are seen to be mature enough to win major titles.

While the Aussies have at least one of the two most dangerous backlines in the world, when their forwards are doing well they tend to be stuck in neutral.

And with injuries mounting in the longest season in the history of southern hemisphere rugby, the Wallabies get hit worst because they have no depth.

Of course, Deans has made some mistakes himself, the most glaring being the omission of Quade Cooper from the squad to play the All Blacks last weekend.

The omission might have been to remove the sideshow element that Cooper brings against the All Blacks, but he is much more calculated than he is given credit for.

The flyhalf also happens to be a big-match player because he plays exactly the same way in a big match as he would on a weekly basis.

The tricky thing about whether Deans will hold on to his job is that we are three years away from another World Cup.

The suits will feel they have time to change tack.

Seeing how they want to copy the All Blacks, maybe they should take a leaf out of the New Zealand Rugby Union's book and persevere with Deans, just as the Kiwis did with Henry after 2007.