Cameron Munster had the perfect reply to James Graham’s belief that his crucial try was an obstruction as Kevin Walters’ praised Australia’s defence in their Ashes series clinching win.

With the scores tied at 4-4 in the 49th minute in the second Test at Everton’s Hill Dickinson Stadium, Munster broke the deadlock with half an hour to play with a contentious try.

Graham was of the belief England skipper George Williams and fullback AJ Brimson were denied a chance to tackle Munster who ran around Angus Crichton, but the Kangaroos back-rower didn’t collide with anyone.

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“Oh, he’s a Pommy, isn’t he? Of course he’s going to be biased to his own team,” Munster said.

“Look there is obviously grey areas in our game. We can talk about going behind a block, but at the end of the day, the rules have changed a little bit, where if the block doesn’t really take anyone out or stand in someone’s way, it’s play-on.

“I had that much time to look at George Williams and A.J. Brimson. They still had a chance to tackle me, so I think that will play to my favour and being a little bit wet, I was able to slide across.

“In a normal dry game, I probably don’t even make that, so yeah, it’s one of those things, it went up as a try and it was a try. I think you can’t overturn those things where if he went no try, it wouldn’t be a try.

“So we can sit here and dissect that as much as you want, but I don’t think that was the reason why they lost tonight.

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“I think we just played some good footy here at times and our skill got us out of trouble.”

However, Munster admitted Australia needed their defence to get them out of trouble because their attack deserted them in Liverpool.

“We definitely felt the feeling once you were on the bus and drove into the stadium,” Munster said.

“Obviously the Pommy’s last week at Wembley weren’t really a hostile environment. When you look at the crowd, there was a fair few people there last week, but today the England crowd really got behind them and you can really feel the build-up in the game.

“Defence wins games and we had to be defensively great tonight because we were pretty pathetic with the ball in hand.”

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Walters agreed the Kangaroos’ defence got them home, but he always had faith they would stand up in that department with the series victory on the line.

“Oh, not so much worried, but I had a lot of confidence and faith in our defence more than anything else,” Walters said.

“That’s where we were really good last week as well, so we stood up today as well, which we needed to because we turned over a fair bit of ball in that first half, but they just kept defending right to the end really.”

Australia clinched the Ashes with a Test to spare, but Walters denied relief was his overlying emotion.

“Not so much relief, it’s enjoyment,” Walters said.

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“We came in, we were expecting a very tough series and we’ve got that.

“Certainly last week sort of went under the radar a bit as far as how tough the game was.

“I know that the players were pretty sore for a few days post-game, so that tells me that the English side are very tough and ready to go, so we got that today from them as well.

“A bit slower today the game, but it was pleasing as I say with our defence.

“We could have been a bit better with our attack, but defence is the thing that wins the big games and that was the case today.”

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In a game that had plenty of feeling and multiple all-in melees, Kangaroos skipper Harry Grant defended his side’s fiery approach.

“I think that was probably a fair bit of that last week as well, so we knew we were here playing a Test match and we knew there was a fair bit of emotion,” Grant said.

“We probably got caught in to it a little bit, but in saying that, if you look back at last week, there was a fair bit of that as well, but today it sort of just backfired a little bit and got pulled up at times.

“Then we sort of got onto our next roles and it probably hurt us in attack, but in saying that, we’re pleased with the way we defended.”

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Grant denied England were poor in the first Test, but admitted they improved as a team in the second.

“I think a lot of people underestimated how tough last week’s game was, how physical it was, and it was an old school Test match where it was super physical,” Grant said.

“We felt that, both teams probably felt that last week and that was the expectation of what tonight was going to be and it was that and then there was a fair bit of improvement within their team.”