{"id":287313,"date":"2025-11-16T01:34:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T01:34:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/287313\/"},"modified":"2025-11-16T01:34:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-16T01:34:07","slug":"relatively-confident-that-we-could-get-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/287313\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Relatively confident that we could get back\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Fraser McReight<\/a> crashed over for a try just before half-time, the Wallabies maintained the belief they could challenge Ireland<\/a> for a Quilter Nations Series win. It was a five-point game at the break, but the Irish powered to a historic 46-19 triumph at Dublin\u2019s Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

Australia-born Mack Hansen<\/a> stole the show during the first half hour with a stunning hat-trick, which had Ireland in the box seat. With the visitors hitting back through Len Ikitau<\/a> and McReight, it was game on going into the second 40.<\/p>\n

It was a tense start to the second stanza as both teams searched for pivotal points, before fly-half Sam Prendergast<\/a> converted a penalty. That proved to be a turning point, with replacement Jack Crowley<\/a> adding a penalty six minutes later.<\/p>\n

Caelan Doris, Ryan Baird<\/a> and Robbie Henshaw<\/a> scored one try each as Ireland ran away with their highest-ever score against Australia. It\u2019s also the Wallabies\u2019 seventh defeat from their last nine Test matches.<\/p>\n

As coach Joe Schmidt reflected post-game, the Wallabies had been \u201crelatively confident that we could get back into the game\u201d going into the second term, but Ireland stormed home for a win that is worthy of its own chapter in rugby\u2019s history books.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah tough one to take, obviously. In the game for the first 60 minutes I think, and we had a lineout just here in the corner, if we get something out of that we\u2019re within a score with 20 to go and we\u2019re right in the game,\u201d Schmidt said on Stan Sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really chased the game in the last 10 minutes and sometimes that can get away with you. You\u2019re trying to create opportunity for yourself but you\u2019re a man down and you offer space and opportunity to the opposition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a really efficient opposition like the Irish are, that scoreboard got away from us but I honestly believe it\u2019s not because the players stopped working hard. They were still trying.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes when you try too hard and you\u2019re overchasing things it does become difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was an element of deja vu when Hansen dived over for a second try around the 10-minute mark, exactly as he had for his first only moments earlier. Tip-on passes saw the British & Irish Lion crossed untouched near the sticks.<\/p>\n

Ireland led 14-0 and were playing at more than a point per minute, which made Ikitau\u2019s effort incredibly important. The Australians fought their way back into the contest, refusing to back down or shy away after trailing early.<\/p>\n

But mistakes came back to haunt the Wallabies at times, with Max Jorgensen<\/a> knocking a loose ball on ahead of Hansen\u2019s second. Other errors made it \u201ca tough night for the boys\u201d, who have one more match left in a 15-Test season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt that we had won the space behind them but we just didn\u2019t get up. The synchronisation just wasn\u2019t there,\u201d Schmidt added.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to be sloppy in those situations. We\u2019d like to think that we can be efficient in those times, just like the Irish were and we\u2019ve got to keep building toward that.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to get into the contest and a couple of times they got free catches in behind us and that became very difficult. Sometimes they found good space, particularly in the first half.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of that, we were hoping to do something similar in the second half but in the platforms that we got, we just probably didn\u2019t get the ball consistently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they had 10 scrums to three and that again just gave them that platform to be able to dictate play.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Fraser McReight crashed over for a try just before half-time, the Wallabies maintained the belief they could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-287313","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}