'Really proud': Wallabies overcome red card to thump Wales
Cardiff: Captain Allan Alaalatoa expressed his pride in the Wallabies’ character after the side shrugged off a second-half red card and surged to victory in the quarter they were down to 14 men, sealing an emphatic eight-try rout of Wales in Cardiff.
The Wallabies’ dream of repeating the 1984 Grand Slam stayed alive another week after the side posting a record 52-20 thumping of the floundering Welsh team.
Hooker Matt Faessler and man-of-the-match Tom Wright both scored hat-tricks in a clash that saw the Wallabies post their highest-ever away score against Wales, and that wasn’t even the worst record collected by the home side.
The 32-point defeat was also Wales’ 11th straight defeat, which is the most consecutive losses in Wales’ long rugby history. It had a grim-looking coach Warren Gatland conceding post-match he would understand if his bosses decided it was best for him to move on.
The Wallabies, by contrast, were all smiles after a win that was forged on hard graft. A week after the thrilling last-gasp win over England, the Wallabies again had to dig deep to win but it was in entirely different circumstances at Principality Stadium.
Tom Wright celebrates after scoring the Wallabies sixth try.Credit: Getty Images
After racing out to 19-0 lead, the Wallabies appeared set for a comfortable afternoon but Wales rallied back to 19-13 by halftime. When Samu Kerevi was yellow carded (which was subsequently upgraded) for a dangerous tackle on Jac Morgan in the 42nd minute, the Welsh crowd surged with hope and belief.
Wallabies fans also began getting flashbacks to the record 40-point loss to Argentina in September, when Australia similarly jumped out to an early lead and then fell apart.
But this time, the composed 14-man Wallabies then turned in their best 20 minutes of the game, with the forwards repeatedly going to the rolling maul to put the Welsh under pressure - and score tries.
With Kerevi missing, Faessler grabbed two tries from mauls and Wright took an intercept to also score, and by the time the Wallabies got 15 players back on the field, they’d added 21 points and snuffed out the Welsh hopes.
The Samu Kerevi tackle that saw him earn a red card.Credit: Getty Images
Wright and Ikitau added two more tries late to post 50 points for the first time since the Wallabies beat Japan 63-30 in 2017. It was just the third time in ten years an Australian team had scored 50 points for more.
“I thought the composure was really good,” Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt said. “Because at 19-13, you can start to feel you’re suffocating and I thought we lost our shape, even towards the end of the first half. We got a bit ragged. It was to get some momentum back in that second half and I felt in the last quarter we put some good stuff together again.”
Alaalatoa said he was “really proud” of the resilience shown by the Wallabies when down a man, and knowing they’d need to work harder than ever for each other.
“Especially being out there and feeling it, it was really special,” Alaalatoa said.
The Wallabies celebrate victory in CardiffCredit: Getty Images
“I think it is going to go a long way for our group. That’s that connection we have been trying to build, for months since July. It is all the little things we have been doing off the field, and the way the squad connects.
“Every little moment, every little training session, builds that character and for us, the way that we connected out there under pressure, was massive for our group and I think we will go a long way from that.”
The Wallabies looked good early and when Wright shimmied through the defence to score in the 12th minute, and when big Nick Frost reminded us about his junior athletics prowess by racing 50 metres to score from a turnover soon after, the visitors looked in good nick. Faessler then rolled in his first try as the maul tailgunner in the 21st minute.
But Wallabies’ mistakes and some tough Welsh defence helped Wales fight back with a try and two penalties. The second half turned on the Kerevi dismissal, but not the way people assumed.
With Skelton as an engine, the Wallabies turned to the rolling maul to get upfield and then score.
“We felt like the maul was giving us the ascendancy and it was an area we wanted to keep going,” Alaalatoa said.
And though they were bested at scrum time, the Wallabies forwards proved the fitter and crucially, were dominant at the lineout, snuffing out any hope of a Welsh fightback with key steals.
After a fortnight of superb form, Wright fittingly sealed the victory with the final try and in echoes of Wales’ record 40-6 win over the Wallabies in Lyon last year, many despondent Welsh fans began exiting the stadium well before fulltime.
Schmidt, whose record now sits at 6 wins from 11 Tests, wasn’t buying into questions about whether the Wallabies were daring to dream about finishing the second half of the Grand Slam.
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“Too far away to contemplate,” Schmidt said. “I have massive respect for Scotland. They will be very tough.”
Schmidt said the Wallabies would look at Kerevi’s case and consider making representations that the offence doesn’t deserve a suspension.
“He is distraught. 50th game for the Wallabies and he gets a red card. He was trying to drop into the tackle, I thought,” Schmidt said. “We will look at that closely, and potentially ask some questions through the right channels.”
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