It was rough enough for Wallabies fans watching a game on the other side of the world several hours before the start of the working week. But there wasn’t enough coffee in the land to address the annoyance and frustration that came with another disappointing display.

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For the third game on the bounce, the Wallabies conceded tries in quick succession to lose their grip on the contest, turning the match into a scoreboard chase, inevitably resulting in unforced errors and turnovers, and more tries shipped.

In the first Bledisloe Cup Test in Auckland, they shelled four tries in 23 second-half minutes when they had been trailing by just three. In the return Test in Sydney, it was four tries in the opening 26 minutes. Against England at Twickenham on Sunday, they conceded three converted tries in 15 minutes after the break.

The Wallabies are still failing in the same areas: the defence leaked another seven tries and England found stress points far too easily; the breakdown work was neither urgent enough nor could it produce quick ruck ball; the ball-carrying provided little gainline advantage and no overall go-forward, and all of that plus a kicking game lacking in distance combined to ensure the Wallabies spent nearly two thirds of the match on their own side of halfway.

Worryingly, this all felt possible when the team was announced.

“I wanted to see how we look with two big locks in the makeup of our squad,” Les Kiss said last week after shifting Jeremy Williams to blindside to accommodate Josh Canham and Lukhan Salakaia-Loto in the second row, and pushing Rob Valetini to the bench. It felt like a massive gamble, leaving arguably the best ball-carrier in the squad in reserve.

The outcome was hardly surprising. The three locks as a 4-5-6 unit combined for 21 carries and 43 metres. When Valetini did get on, he made 20m from six carries in just over half an hour, but with the Wallabies already trailing 26-10 and their possession share at that point in the game hovering around 40%.

A Scottish team awaits at Murrayfield smarting from what was the latest ‘best chance’ to finally beat New Zealand. Having watched the All Blacks and now England methodically break the Wallabies’ defence apart by playing right in their faces, the Scots’ own preferred approach lends itself to doing exactly the same thing.

We just can’t sit back on our heels and cop that and not have a response somewhere.

“Yeah, well, that’s the reality,” Kiss said in response to the obvious question about turning the Wallabies woes around in a week. “Test rugby will come on us before we know it. We just can’t sit back on our heels and cop that and not have a response somewhere.

“We train well but it’s got to be better than training. I’d rather train terrible and put the 80 minutes on. That’s more important.

“But we’ve got to find a solution to get that right. I can’t fault the boys and their effort and their ambition to make sure they work hard to get the little things right that we want in that game. But we’ve got to transfer it.

“Is a week long enough? It has to be.”

The Australian rugby public awaits the response.

While the first weekend back in Nations Championship mode produced mostly great rugby across the six games, none of that is possible without excellent refereeing performances. The best whistleblowers in the game have what everyone knows is the best ‘feel’ for the play, which of course is a completely unmeasurable trait.

Andrew Brace was very good in Edinburgh for Scotland-New Zealand, and quick to own up to an inadvertent mistake late in the game. After ruling a Damian McKenzie pass went forward and hearing instant All Black suggestion it had come off Scotland centre Huw Jones, Brace could be heard telling McKenzie, “It went forward, but I could be wrong”.

And what he meant and further explained, was he had to make a call live, and if he was wrong, the TMO would quickly tell him. Only a matter of seconds later with the message received, he had to concede, “I’m sorry guys, I’ve got that wrong. It was knocked back by blue,” switching the scrum feed back to New Zealand.

No, I’m not thinking yellow, it’s not a cynical play. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing

Luke Pearce had a similar moment of clarity in the first half in Dublin on Friday night, when his game instincts overruled a possible penalty try the laws of the game certainly would have allowed, and in the same moment quashed a possible yellow card for Argentinean replacement hooker Leonel Oviedo.

Ireland captain Dan Sheehan had peeled off a lineout drive down the short side, and was brought to ground but not held as he rolled toward the try line. His foot went into touch anyway, but Pearce and his on-field team correctly ruled Oviedo had fallen onto Sheehan on the ground. And it being an infringement in the act of scoring, despite the foot going into touch, penalty try then became an option.

“And based on that probability (of the foot going into touch), I don’t think penalty try seems fair,” Pearce explained.

“I think it’s definitely illegal, but I don’t see how it’s a penalty try, and I’m going to penalise number 16 (Oviedo) for the actions he does. Does that seem fair?” he asked of his team, who all agreed.

TMO Andrew Jackson asked if yellow card should be considered, being that close to the line, but again Pearce was thinking clearly.

“No, I’m not thinking yellow, it’s not a cynical play. I don’t think he knows what he’s doing, it’s all instinct. But it is illegal. Everyone okay with that?” Pearce said, and with TMO Jackson in full agreement.

A win for common sense, and exactly the kind of thing coaches, fans and writers have called for at different points.

And given criticisms can fly so quickly, and so often incorrectly, it’s only fair that referees are lauded for thinking and acting on their feet.