By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia coach Dave Rennie bemoaned the inconsistency of his side on Saturday after they were well beaten by South Africa in the Rugby Championship a week after putting the world champions to the sword.
The Wallabies have won tests this year against England, Argentina and South Africa but lost to the same team the following week every time, leaving them with a 3-4 record in seven tests on the season.
Their decent start to last week’s game against the Springboks was a distant memory at the Sydney Football Stadium as the visitors bullied the Wallabies at the breakdown and shut down almost every attack.
“It was frustrating, we just couldn’t get into the game. They certainly defended well, we just struggled to get any continuity, they strangled us pretty well,” Rennie told reporters.
“We lost collisions early, which gave them momentum. We weren’t good enough to turn any pressure into points. It felt like we didn’t fire a shot.”
As so often in Rennie’s three years in charge, there was a little bit of bad luck with centre Hunter Paisami and flyhalf Noah Lolesio forced out of the game by head knocks and Taniela Tupou unable to get onto the field because of injury.
Rennie said he was not yet certain of the extent of the calf injury the big replacement prop suffered while warming up but said it was not the same problem that delayed his start to the test season.
The road does not get any easier from here on in for the Wallabies with home and away tests against the All Blacks to come.
“What we are looking for is consistency, last week was 70 minutes of excellent footy and we wanted to build on that,” Rennie added.
“International rugby at the moment is so tight, you only have to be a couple of cogs off and you end up finishing second and we’ve seen that right throughout this Rugby Championship.
“So we’ve got to be better, we’ve got to win those key contests and we were well short in those areas tonight.”
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney, editing by Andrew Cawthorne)
