DUBLIN :Australia face the prospect of a winless tour for the first time in almost 70 years after Saturday’s loss to Ireland made it three in a row and with a tough test against France to come next weekend.
The Wallabies were handed a 46-19 hiding by Ireland in Dublin on Saturday to add to losses earlier in the month against England at Twickenham and Italy in Udine.
They now face four straight northern hemisphere defeats, the first time since 1958 this will have befallen any Wallabies team, when they take on France in Paris next Saturday.
It has been an attritional year for the Wallabies who have lost nine of 14 tests since July, and their performances over the last three tests in Europe have looked to have an element of fatigue, although coach Joe Schmidt was having none of that.
“We are working hard and tiredness isn’t an excuse,” he said in the post-match press conference.
“We have to put an 80-minute performance out there. We can’t be 22-14 down and collapse like we did. There was some good pressure from Ireland, but at the same time our execution wasn’t good enough.
“We know we’re going to get more of that from France next week. They tend to kick a lot. I think everyone kicks a lot now with the way the game is set up. It’s tough to carry a lot of ball, particularly through the middle of the field so you’re tending to go for competitive kicks,” Schmidt added.
Fielding those high balls successfully will be high on Schmidt’s agenda for fixing ahead of the clash with France. The Wallabies lost 16 high-ball contests against Ireland and also six of their own lineouts.
“We put ourselves in some good positions there, and our lineout really let us down there,” captain Harry Wilson said.
“When you don’t have the heart of your set piece functioning well, it really does put the team under pressure there. It was quite disappointing because we pride ourselves on being quite good in that area.”
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
