- guardian.co.uk, Sunday July 8 2001 14.21 BST
Damn. Look. I'll have to be quick because this is no time to be late for the team bus. The mood is down. Way down. And they won't be in the mood for me to keep them hanging around.
I couldn't even run out of their way if they got heavy with me. I'm crocked. I couldn't get the bruise out of my leg in time and had to give up my place on the bench. I could jog but I couldn't run and I think we saw tonight that there's no point in trying to take that lot on unless you're up for it physically.
I'll be all right by Wednesday they say, but this isn't the moment to be worrying about me. Although we'll all have to switch on to the big one in Sydney pretty sharpish.
Mind you, one more mood swing won't make that much difference. Talk about living in a madhouse. And that's me talking. I reckon I'm one of the few sane people left here. Don't worry about me, though.
For the moment we must think of the lads who were injured tonight. When you see four of your mates going off to hospital you realise what a battering it was out there and how badly we need to stick together now.
I can't tell you how much that hurt. Not hurt like they were hurt. Just hurt in spirit. The changing room was an emotional ruin after the game. The boys just felt they'd let themselves down. And it hurt them.
It's hard to describe how a changing room can go from that sense of achievement to this sense of... well, failure, I suppose. Just think, we should have won the bloody game. Those chances in the first half. If we had taken just one of them I think we'd have given them a right going over again.
It's one of the frustrations of not being involved, that missed chances make you want to shout. But the guys know they missed them. So, I'll only whisper it again. One more try scored and I reckon we'd have gone through them. But to end up having it done to us is what hurts.
I suppose I should congratulate the Wallabies. But not yet. Not while this whole thing has yet to be sorted. There are a few scores to settle. It ain't all over yet.
I don't know how it crumbled like that. We stopped cutting down their space. We stopped going up on them in aggressive defence. We let them take the game on. Hell, we simply let them play. That's why Gregan and Larkham suddenly looked so good.
I'm trying to think of anything in the build-up that might have set alarm bells ringing. But all that stuff about the Aussies coming here to Melbourne and going through all that confession stuff about holding up their hands and saying they all took the blame for Brisbane, and pleading with the crowd to turn up and wear green and gold and give them a cheer... that was all crap. I still reckon it was a sign of desperation.
There's been so much propaganda on this tour. Maybe we shouldn't even have listened to any of it. But we told ourselves we were still the underdogs.
Let's face it, the game wasn't lost because we went out there believing we were the bee's knees. It was lost after all the real slog had been done. This is as close as I'll get to a compliment: you have to admire the Aussies for the way they absorbed that pressure in the first half and then came back at us.
We are underdogs now. That suits us. Somebody tell the Aussies they're brilliant and they're going to smack us in the last Test. Shout as loud as you can that they're absolutely unbeatable. It's time to get back to that spirit of Brisbane. I feel like putting in a really big swear word to describe how I feel about these... but no. Stay calm, Ozzer. Just say that it's time for us to have our backs to the wall. That's when we grow strong.
Can we really do it now? Yes. Believe it. Yes. We've got to get to Sydney and do something together. A big together thing. These are the biggest seven days of our rugby lives. We've got to make it happen.
Shit, the bus. Just remember, it ain't over yet...
