Wallabies coach Dave Rennie was left ruing how poorly his team played in the second half after their 57-22 loss at Eden Park on Saturday night.
It was a tight first half in Bledisloe II, with the All Blacks up 21-15 at the break. But over the second 40 minutes the Wallabies made numerous mistakes as New Zealand ran away with it, to score the most points they ever have against Australia in a test.
“We were well beaten and well beaten because we didn’t treasure the ball enough,” Rennie said.
“I thought we defended really well in the first half and were physical, but we made some really poor decisions defensively if we turned the ball over or kicked poorly.
“We got exposed down the short side and threw a couple of intercepts when there was clear space behind to put the pressure on them. It’s disappointing.”
The Wallabies conceded three intercept tries over the two tests at Eden Park and against a team of the All Blacks’ quality that makes winning all the more difficult.
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“It is disappointing,” Rennie said.
“It highlights what we’ve talked about, that if they’re going to play high, you’ve got to turn them around, put the ball behind them.
“So it’s disappointing that we’re not seeing that, not communicating. It sounds like with the second one there was plenty of talk but we didn’t react.”
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Rennie was asked how much responsibility he takes for this defeat and he said the blame should be on his shoulders.
“Everything falls back on me,” he said.
“We went in with a plan, if we can’t execute that plan, we’ll seriously look at what we’re doing.
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“We want to have an optimistic mindset around how we play, but you’ve got to play what’s in front of you.
“In the end, the players are implementing what we’re trying to put on the park. So clearly we’ll take responsibility for it.”
Scoring 25 points against the All Blacks one week and 22 the next, shows that the Wallabies were able to do well with certain parts of their game, although defence is clearly a problem, especially in the second Test.
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But Rennie said there were positives he could take.
“We found a lot of space in and around them,” he said.
“There was a lot of nice footy from an attack perspective, but just not for long enough. We’d find space in behind them, throw a couple of smart offloads, but then we’d turn it over or throw an intercept.
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“You’ve got to be able to put the foot on the throat longer at this level. We’ve got a young side that’s learning and learning quickly.”
The two teams will next face each other in Perth on August 28 and given that the Wallabies’ record in Bledisloe Cup Tests on Australian soil is far better than it is in New Zealand, Rennie is hopeful that they can win get one win in this series.
“What we know is that you’ve got to defend well against the All Blacks and clearly we didn’t do that well enough,” he said.
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“If you can reduce them to around 20 points or less, they lose more than they win. So it was certainly a goal heading in and it will be important in this next one.
“We’ve got to keep building on our attack and then it’s our ability to make smart decisions and play what’s in front of us.
“That’s an area that we need a lot of development.”
This article originally appeared on stuff.co.nz and is reproduced with permission
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