{"id":278200,"date":"2025-11-23T02:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T02:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/278200\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T02:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T02:15:06","slug":"wallabies-condemned-to-winless-europe-tour-in-loss-to-france-as-pressure-mounts-on-joe-schmidt-australia-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/278200\/","title":{"rendered":"Wallabies condemned to winless Europe tour in loss to France as pressure mounts on Joe Schmidt | Australia rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pressure continues to mount on the beleaguered coach Joe Schmidt after the Wallabies ended a disastrous spring tour<\/a> with a damaging 48-33 loss to France in Paris.<\/p>\n

Despite a vastly improved showing after insipid displays against England, Italy and Ireland, the Wallabies have now endured a winless four-Test tour of Europe for the first time since 1958.<\/p>\n

Perhaps even worse, Schmidt\u2019s side are now also the first Australian outfit to lose 10 Tests in a calendar year as the mentor\u2019s winning percentage dipped below 40%.<\/p>\n

The Wallabies\u2019 dead-rubber victory over the touring British and Irish Lions and a giddy first take-down of the world champion Springboks<\/a> on the South African highveld since 1963 feel light years away.<\/p>\n

Les Kiss is contracted to take over from Schmidt after the inaugural Nations Championship next July, leaving the Queensland Reds coach little more than a year to ready the Wallabies for the 2027 Rugby World Cup in Australia.<\/p>\n

But calls for Schmidt to fall on his sword will inevitably grow louder after his winning strike rate slumped to 39% \u2013 the second-worst for a Wallabies coach of 20 Tests or more in almost 60 years.<\/p>\n

Only Dave Rennie\u2019s 36% return is worse and he was promptly fired by Rugby Australia after a similarly gloomy 2022 spring tour.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Schmidt again urged long-suffering Wallabies fans to keep the faith.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re disappointed we didn\u2019t finish with the victory that I know you would have all loved to see, but the players have made a heck of an effort,\u201d he told Stan Sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s 15 Tests in 22 weeks with the amount of travel I\u2019ve had. I just admire the way they have dusted themselves off and gone again. And it wasn\u2019t for lack of effort tonight. A little bit more execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will get better. So please don\u2019t give up on them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sorry stats will overshadow an encouraging turnaround from the Wallabies at Stade de France on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

After going to the break locked at 19-19, the battling tourists \u2013 led by a some powerhouse efforts from the forward pack \u2013 threatened a shock win over the reigning European champions.<\/p>\n

Props Taniela Tupou and Angus Bell and two-try hooker Matt Faessler were enormous, and skipper Harry Wilson typically inspirational.<\/p>\n

But the Wallabies once again proved little more than a 60-minute outfit as Les Bleus, inspired by electric winger Louis Bielle-Biarrey, skipped out to a match-winning 16-point lead late on.<\/p>\n

Clearly intent on trying to avoid an unwanted place in the history books, the Wallabies came out firing, with Wilson sending Bell on a thunderous run to put the visitors on the attack early.<\/p>\n

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Faessler cashed in with a pick-and-drive effort to give the Wallabies a 5-0 lead. In a sign of things to come, world player of the year nominee Bielle-Biarrey put centre Nicolas Depoort\u00e8re over minutes later in a deadly French counterattack.<\/p>\n

Angus Bell runs to score a runaway try for Australia. Photograph: Thibaud Moritz\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Bell put Australia back in front \u2013 12-7 \u2013 with a barnstorming 30-metre runaway try after Jake Gordon\u2019s quick tap had the French back-pedalling.<\/p>\n

Fullback Thomas Ramos levelled the scores before a brilliant chip-chase try earned France a 19-12 advantage.<\/p>\n

Faessler\u2019s second try, from a driving maul after French scrumhalf Maxime Lucu was yellow carded, locked the Test up at half-time.<\/p>\n

Depoort\u00e8re\u2019s second try and a Ramos penalty helped France to a 27-19 lead before classy winger Max Jorgensen produced a magical solo try to reduce the deficit to a point.<\/p>\n

That was as close as the Wallabies would get as further tries to Bielle-Biarrey and hookers Julien Marchand and Maxime Lamothe \u2013 and 10 second-half penalties \u2013 killed off Australian hopes.<\/p>\n

The Wallabies had needed to win by 16 points to snatch an all-important top-six seeding for next month\u2019s 2027 World Cup draw.<\/p>\n

Instead the 15-point loss will leave the tournament hosts staring down a sudden-death round-of-16 showdown with one of global heavyweights like South Africa, New Zealand, France, Ireland or England.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pressure continues to mount on the beleaguered coach Joe Schmidt after the Wallabies ended a disastrous spring tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-278200","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\/278200","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=278200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}