MY ACCOUNT
Australia head coach Dave Rennie refused to use the Wallabies’ lengthy injury list as an excuse for their series defeat to England.
Eddie Jones’ side added to their tour triumph in 2016 by making it back-to-back series wins Down Under, beating Australia 21-17 in the deciding Test on Saturday.
The tourists fell behind in the series after going down 30-28 in Perth, but levelled up with a 25-17 win in Brisbane last weekend.
Australia started brightly on Saturday, moving 10-3 ahead after Tom Wright’s try. England recovered as Freddie Steward and Marcus Smith went over to turn the contest firmly in their favour at 21-10, and stood firm after Folau Fainga’a powered over later on.
The hosts were without 11 players due to injury or suspension, but Rennie believes his side should still have had enough quality to overcome England.
“We had a good enough side on the field to win tonight,” he told reporters. “What it highlights is we’re creating really good depth and I think a lot of guys who’ve got an opportunity have really stood up.
“You’ve just got to find a way, don’t you? Injury is part of the game and we did enough tonight, but you have to be clinical and take opportunities.
“We created a lot of opportunities. I think we went in with the right plan, we just weren’t clinical enough.
“If we turn a couple of those opportunities early on in the game, we start applying pressure to them. It’s disappointing because at this level you have you got to take your chances and we left a lot out there.”
Australia captain Michael Hooper conceded the series loss hurts, and also called on his team-mates to become more clinical.
“Dave’s talked about just being clinical in those situations, you want to be a team that can grind out a win,” he said.
“They get to your end, they take points, pick up some scraps there, get more points, and then you have to start looking at the line, try to maul, we can’t just do 3-6-9 walk on them.
“Their ability to stack points on was a credit to them across the series, and they just keep applying that pressure with their kick game.
“England did really well there. They had injuries too so they grinded out a series win.
“In terms of our learnings there’s a heap for us. We’ve blooded some new players so that’s a great thing. With injury comes opportunity.
“We were hurting last week, now we’re going to be hurting even more. So it’s going to be a long three weeks until we play again.”
