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Wallabies coach Eddie Jones confronted a South African reporter and repeatedly accused him of being a “smart arse” in a feisty reaction after a horrific start to his Wallabies comeback.
Jones accepted Australia was outplayed everywhere by the Springboks as his team was trounced 43-12 – scoring the first and last tries with eight in between from the Springboks in Pretoria.
The Boks bossed the game in all areas but particularly the collision where the Wallabies were overwhelmed. It meant the Australians had no foothold in the game. In a chilling stat – the Wallabies spent just five phases and 47 seconds in the Boks’ 22 while the hosts were camped in Australia’s for 5 minutes, 6 seconds.
“We got beaten to the punch everywhere,” Jones said. “We got beaten in the set piece, we got beaten at the gain line and beaten in the air and if you don’t win any of those contests it’s going to be a long day at the office.
“There wasn’t many positives today. We went out there to play with a bit more pace and we were able to do that for the first 20 minutes but weren’t able to convert any pressure we put on the Springboks into points. Of course the Springboks came back and every time they got an opportunity they converted it into points.
“‘It starts with the set piece and once they’re on top they’ve got their big ball runners and there’s no better team in the world than South Africa once they’ve got an edge to keep playing on top of you.”
Before the game Jones had said he wanted to face a full strength Springboks instead of this line up. The Boks sent 12 stars to New Zealand early to prepare for next weekend’s match against the All Blacks, who beat Argentina 41-12 in their opener.
A South African reporter asked Jones if he was relieved he didn’t face the full force of the Boks.
“South Africans are good at winning – so you don’t have to be a smartarse, mate.”
“We’ll bounce back, I have no doubt. We were well and truly beaten today by a Springboks side that old mate’s calling the B team. I never knew there was a Springboks side called the B team but now we have a new term.”
Jones returned his gaze and ire to the reporter and confronted him at the end of the press conference as he was leaving the room.
“You don’t have to be a smartarse, mate,” Jones repeated. “You should have more respect mate. I never said that mate. I said we always want to play the best. Show some respect.”
Jones said his coaching team had to identify “the two or three areas” to fix.
“One certainly is the consistency of our set piece. There were possibly opportunities for us to be more dominant in the lineout and we didn’t take advantage of that. Our scrum is a continual work on. We’ve got to find ways to get over the gain line. We fix those against Argentina and we’re back in the money.”
Under Dave Rennie discipline was a recurring and seemingly unfixable theme – the Wallabies were no better at all in the return of Jones.
(Photo by Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
Former Wallaby captain James Horwill put a positive spin on the disaster post-game.
“A week is a long time in football. It’s not like it can’t be fixed. There are easy fixes. There are small things in terms of playing at the right end of the field,” said an upbeat Horwill on Stan Sport.
“It might look like it’s all doom and gloom but I see a couple of changes to some personnel and tactics, and a shift in mindset and a different team we’re playing against.
“I’m not sitting here concerned thinking the Wallabies are out of it this season.”
Horwill did agree it was a disappointing performance.
“The failure to not really fire a shot after that last little bit was the most disappointing part. You look at possession stats and time in opposition 22 was 47 seconds in the whole game. That just tells the storyWe didn’t build enough pressure and in the end we were just absorbing and they were coming in waves after wave and it showed in the end.
There are some structural things that can be fixed but we just didn’t assert ourselves on that game.”
Former Wallaby Stephen Hoiles said it was a “terrible start” for the Australians’ World Cup campaign but a team featuring four debutants should get a boost from being exposed to the realities of top tier rugby.
“We had such high expectations. We know it’s a challenging place to play against the reigning world champions but I don’t think any of us saw that coming,” Hoiles said.
(Photo by Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images/Getty Images)
“Some players got their opportunity to say why they should be at a World Cup and other players probably showed why they might not make the World Cup. You can’t accept that.
“A lot of guys have never been to South Africa They’ve been exposed to the cauldron and what it will be like at the World Cup.
“You’ve got to understand Test rugby is a different animal, the physicality, and winning collisions which will be a big part of of what this Rugby World Cup will be about.
“You come into the latter stages of the competition – the quarterfinals and probably for us it will be England or Argentina. It will be physical, you’ve got to win collisions and if you get through it will be New Zealand or France so it’s going to be a big part of the competition for the guys to understand now that’s what it’s like to play Test rugby and the difference compared to Super Rugby.”
Hoiles name checked Pete Samu, who replaced injured Tom Hooper early on, as having a positive game and called out Jordan Uelese for three poor lineout throws in succession in the second half.
“There’s a few guys there who said ‘I’m ready for this level’ – Carter Gordon being one of them.”
Wallabies co-captain James Slipper acknowledged that an issue prevalent under Rennie – a lack of discipline – was still there under Jones.
The Wallabies were on the end of a 13-3 penalty count from Ben O’Keeffe while their handling and decision making was likewise poor. Two yellow cards while defending their line – both which resulted in penalty tries, told the story of the pressure they were under.
“There was an opportunity to come here and put it in a game that we were proud of,” said Slipper.
“And to be fair, we just defended the whole second half. So you’ve got to give credit to the Springboks that put us under pressure and we will learn a lot from that.”
Asked what the Wallabies will learn, Slipper responded: “Once again, discipline, playing at the right end of the field. It’s a tough start, but we’ve got a long year ahead of us. There’s plenty to come. So we’ll keep working hard.
“We wanted to play a Wallaby game tonight and I’d probably say we didn’t deal with the pressure. The discipline put us on the backfoot a bit.
“We lost two players to the sin bin. In Test matches you need to be playing well in those areas, set piece needs to be functioning you need to be playing at the right end and we didn’t do that tonight, but we’ll learn from that. We’ve got Argentina next week so we’ll go again.”
The Boks were understandably happy with how things transpired.
“I’m really proud of the boys, it was a fantastic performance,” Bok captain Duane Vermeulen said at the post-match presentation. “We played to our strengths. We can still improve, it was not 100 percent our best performance, but I’m very happy with the result.”