REACTION: Despite the loss to the back-to-back World Cup Springboks in Perth on Saturday, Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt felt his side was always in the fight.
The Springboks made it two-from-two against the Wallabies in the Rugby Championship in front of 58,197 fans at a soggy Perth Stadium.
The Wallabies fought valiantly in the first half, narrowly missing a penalty kick on half-time that would have given the home side the lead at the break, before injuries, a late yellow card, and the Springboks’ rolling maul proved too much for the Wallabies in the second half, the visitors winning 30-12.
Shortly after half-time, the Wallabies had lost three out of their four selected props in Allan Alaalatoa, Angus Bell, and James Slipper to injury, before starting hooker Josh Nasser followed them off with serious cramping shortly after.
The damage ultimately saw uncontested scrums with Australia unable to field a full front row.
Hunter Paisami also left the field with a leg injury before Seru Uru received a late yellow card, and Malcolm Marx sealed a South African victory at the back of the rolling maul.
“[We can take] a little bit of confidence and frustration, because when we got to 18-12 and it stayed like that for a little while, we had a couple of half opportunities to potentially build pressure or capitalise that we didn’t take,” said Schmidt.
“If you don’t take those and create a little bit of doubt in their mind that we’re close and dangerous enough, that was a little bit of frustration.
“The first half I felt we fought really hard, we ended up with a few good line breaks and opportunities… Max [Jorgensen] got his [opportunity] with a little bit of space behind him which would have been fantastic for him as a young kid and would’ve had us potentially back to 23-19 and then you’re right in the game again.
“I didn’t want us to try not to lose.
“We wanted to go out and be ahead at halftime,” Schmidt said.
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Looking ahead at their tour of Argentina, the coach reminded all of how tough this Rugby Championship is.
“We play three of the four semifinalists and we weren’t one of them. So it doesn’t get any easier going to Argentina next.
“They demonstrated just how tough they can be to beat when they toppled the All Blacks and didn’t even give them a bonus point.”
In the end, the Springboks proved too strong, shutting down the Wallabies’ opportunities and taking enough of their own to record a bonus point victory.
Australia will travel to Argentina to play back-to-back Tests against Los Pumas in the next leg of the Rugby Championship, with the first Test kicking off on 1 September.
