The Wallabies have saved coach Dave Rennie, however they could have put Wales head coach Wayne Pivac’s head on the chopping block.
Australia mounted a miraculous comeback after trailing by 21 factors with 22 minutes to play to tug off a memorable 39-34 victory on Sunday morning.
The morale-sapping defeat towards an Australia aspect that have been lacking key gamers just like the injured Michael Hooper and fly-half Bernard Foley might properly have been Pivac’s thirty fourth and remaining Test in cost.
Two tries by Australia’s 22-year-old wing and man of the match Mark Nawaqanitawase sparked the comeback which ended a three-match shedding run on the tour together with a historic defeat to Italy.
Rennie mentioned after the win it was about time his aspect received the higher of a slender scoreline.
The Aussies had gone all the way down to each France and Italy by a degree after which simply three factors by the hands of the world’s top-ranked group Ireland final week. They started the tour with a one-point win over Scotland.
For the 58-year-old, victory additionally noticed them keep away from what would have been their worst set of leads to a calendar 12 months since 1958. However, it was nonetheless solely their fifth win in 14 Tests.
“I guess we could have lost all five (autumn Tests) or won all five, that’s the sort of tour it’s been,” Rennie mentioned.
“It was good to win a tight one. We would have liked to have closed it out, unfortunately we gave away a penalty and gave them one more crack.
“We have got some learning to do, but this will help.”
Rennie went on to say the group was “stoked” to complete the tour with a win.
“It was a game around momentum,” he mentioned.
“They got it early, pressure resulted in a couple of cards.
“I thought we got fantastic impact off the bench, who we went to early, and we had all the momentum late in the game and applied the pressure there.
“Huge amount of ticker in this group, and we had a number of guys who played in the Italy game who had a chance at redemption – there were a number of young guys who really fronted today.
“We’re stoked. It’s a nice way to finish off.”
It was very completely different within the different dressing room.
With lower than a 12 months to go to the World Cup in France, Pivac might hope it’s too late to alter issues on the prime — his almost definitely successor, former Wales boss Warren Gatland advised Amazon Prime previous to the match he had not been approached a few return.
Pivac might level to the truth that Wales nonetheless held a snug lead on Saturday when captain Justin Tipuric was sin-binned for a cynical journey on Pete Samu.
He was then joined by alternative hooker Ryan Elias who value the hosts a penalty strive which left Wales 34-32 up with lower than seven minutes remaining.
“I thought we built the game nicely and got in a situation where we should have won the game,” Pivac advised Amazon Prime.
“Clearly we took advantage of their indiscipline and then when the roles were reversed, they did the same to us.
“We can’t fault the effort that the boys put in. We talked after last week we wanted more physicality and we wanted to go out there and express ourselves.
“I thought for large parts we did that, we just weren’t able to bring it home.”
