With their backs to the wall again after an error strewn hour had left them 18 points behind, the Wallabies looked forlornly to the Allianz Stadium grandstands and saw Rugby Australia boss Phil Waugh sitting with John Howard. Surely this was the omen they needed to emulate the former Prime Minister\u2019s famous \u201cLazarus with a triple-bypass\u201d comeback.<\/p>\n
Joe Schmidt\u2019s side have a reputation for rising from the ashes with last-gasp victories. They beat England in November with a last-play roll of the dice and they shocked Argentina last week with a try in overtime<\/a>. Today, in another rousing fightback before 41,912 in Sydney, they clawed their way back to trail 28-26 with seconds left on the clock<\/a>.<\/p>\n But in a game marred by over-officious refereeing, Australia fell just short. Despite a controversial try to replacement winger Filipo Daugunu in the 79th minute that got them within striking distance, Australia fumbled the chance to start a Rugby Championship<\/a> with three wins in four matches for the first time since 2011. Australia outscored Argentina four tries to one, but they conceded 13 penalties to Argentina\u2019s five, allowing Los Pumas deadeye Santi Carreras to kick eight from eight from the tee and square the head-to-head series at one-all.<\/p>\n The 28-26 defeat drops Australia\u2019s rugby renaissance under coach Schmidt into a slightly lower gear after scintillating victories over the British & Irish Lions, world champions South Africa<\/a> and Argentina last week. But the belief they can next break New Zealand\u2019s 23-year stranglehold on the Bledisloe Cup later this month remains.<\/p>\n Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii scores a try for the Wallabies early in the Rugby Championship Test against Argentina at Allianz Stadium. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts\/AAP<\/p>\n Australia started poorly again. As they had last week, Los Pumas converted promise into early points, Santiago Carreras spearing home a penalty inside three minutes. But the Wallabies hit back quickly, winning a turnover from the kickoff and, after hard runs from Harry Wilson and Rob Valetini, sent Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii powering over.<\/p>\n Then disaster. In his first start for the Wallabies, Tane Edmed\u2019s dawdling kick for touch was charged down by Pumas captain Julian Montoya who scrambled it back and scored, leaving the rookie flyhalf\u2019s face as red as his hair and Australia in arrears. Another Carreras penalty soon after extended Argentina\u2019s lead to 13-7.<\/p>\n Offered a penalty 30m out, captain Harry Wilson shook his head. The skipper had said a vocal Townsville crowd was the difference in his decision to spurn three point-blank penalties to draw that Test and chase a five-pointer to win it. Last week it worked. Here it backfired, Rob Valetini crossing the line but fumbling the touchdown.<\/p>\n Australia\u2019s comedy of errors continued when halves Nic White and Edmed muddled a kickoff and star winger Max Jorgensen was yellow carded for a deliberate knockdown. After conceding eight first-half penalties and allowing the Pumas to race to a 21-7 lead at half-time last week, Schmidt had drilled discipline all week. Alas, it was MIA again.<\/p>\n Argentina players celebrate a Julian Montoya try during their Rugby Championship Test against Australia at Allianz Stadium. Photograph: Saeed Khan\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The Wallabies knew all too well the wrath of a wounded Puma. Last year Argentina had bounced back from a 20-19 home loss to dish out a 67-27 walloping in which they overturned a 17-point deficit and condemned Australia to their heaviest Test defeat.<\/p>\n Their luck was in. Argentina had already fumbled three tries with errant final touches. It should\u2019ve allowed the rattled Wallabies to regroup and surf the roaring hometown support to points. But despite a flurry of bursts by midfielder Hunter Paisami, each chance was squandered as attacking lines tangled and communication broke down.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week’s action reviewed<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n After staggering to half-time 19-7 behind, the Wallabies\u2019 dog\u2019s breakfast spilled over into the second half. Schmidt\u2019s new-look backline spluttered. Each time Australia looked like scoring the final pass was spilled or support never arrived. Carreras punished each piece of clumsiness with his boot, kicking Los Pumas to 25-7 with 25 minutes to play.<\/p>\n As always, Wilson was inspirational in his charges and James O\u2019Connor brought late calm and width to steal late tries to Andrew Kellaway and Daugunu and get the sold-out crowd on their feet. But Australia\u2019s composure crumbled under the high ball and ultimately they couldn\u2019t run on feet they\u2019d shot off with their own impetuosity.<\/p>\n With a number of forced changes to the side that beat Los Pumas last week, Wallabies coach Schmidt rued his side\u2019s lack of cohesion. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to be better in the aerial battle but I thought we won the battle on the ground \u2026 we made 11 line breaks to three,\u201d he said. \u201cBut on the back of that we dropped the ball cold and coughed it up on the ground. Those are the things you can\u2019t afford to do against the good teams.\u201d<\/p>\n Half-back Tate McDermott refused to blame the defeat on Christophe Ridley\u2019s zealous whistle. \u201cWe didn\u2019t lose that game because of the ref,\u201d McDermott said. \u201cWe lost it because of our ill-discipline.\u201d<\/p>\n With tough Tests against the All Blacks coming up in Eden Park this month and in Perth on October 4, Australia must reset in its quest to snatch the Rugby Championship. \u201cI\u2019m absolutely devastated,\u201d admitted flanker Fraser McReight. \u201cBut now we need to use the time wisely. We\u2019ve got to come back into camp … the Bledisloe is on the line.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With their backs to the wall again after an error strewn hour had left them 18 points behind,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-134058","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}