Australia coach Joe Schmidt is bracing himself for another major challenge when he takes the Wallabies to Argentina later this month after suffering back-to-back defeats against South Africa in the opening two rounds of the Rugby Championship.
Schmidt saw his side handed a 30-12 defeat in Perth on Saturday, one week after opening their campaign with a loss against the world champions, and the coach knows more challenges lie ahead when the Wallabies travel to South America.
“One of the things about this competition is it’s not going to get any easier,” said Schmidt. “We play three of the four [World Cup] semi-finalists and we weren’t one of them. It doesn’t get easier going to Argentina next.
“They’ve demonstrated how tough they can be to beat when they toppled the All Blacks and didn’t even give them a bonus point.”
Schmidt's side will play twice against a Pumas side that opened their own campaign with victory over New Zealand in Wellington last week before being brought back down to earth by Scott Robertson's side on Saturday in Auckland.
The Wallabies, meanwhile, put on a battling display against a much-changed Springboks side but trailed 11-9 at the interval before Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus introduced his experienced players from the bench.
World Cup-winning hooker Malcolm Marx crossed twice in the second half as South Africa opened up an unassailable lead, the world champions eventually sealing a comfortable win in the rain.
“We didn’t die wondering,” Schmidt said. “We chanced our arm a few times in pretty tough conditions. It was tough going to be able to carry [the ball] in these conditions and they turned over a fair amount of ball as well. We scrambled back and survived a couple of early threats as well, and I was proud of the effort that was made.
“I didn’t want us to just try not to lose because I think, particularly in that first half, we wanted to go out and be ahead at half-time. Give ourselves the confidence that when they unleashed that bench that they had that we had already earned a pretty combative, competitive first 40 and maybe a narrow lead.”
Meanwhile, New Zealand captain Ardie Savea said the All Blacks had refused to be distracted by their upcoming clashes with South Africa in their desire to avenge last week’s surprise loss to Argentina when the nations met in Auckland on Saturday.
Scott Robertson’s side bounced back in to style to notch up a 42-10 win over Argentina that extends the All Blacks’ unbeaten streak at their Eden Park stronghold to 50 games and sets up a pair of blockbuster clashes away to the Springboks on August 31st and September 7th.
“We know how tough it is to go to South Africa, but we wanted to focus on this week, tonight,” said the All Blacks forward. “We did a job. We’ve got a few days at home to recover, refresh, put some money in the bank and then come together and go to Africa.”
The South Africans lead the early Rugby Championship standings by five points after their back-to-back wins over Australia while the All Blacks needed to bounce back from a disappointing opening showing against the Pumas.
Will Jordan scored a pair of tries and Damian McKenzie added 17 points to lead the New Zealanders to a comfortable win in wet and wind-swept Auckland that put their campaign back on track.
“We talked about having a response, and we did tonight, especially the first 40,” said Robertson. “The wetter the better, really. When it dried up, that was when we made it tough on ourselves. I’m just really proud that we showed what we’re all about.”
New Zealand’s win was built on a dominant first-half display with Robertson’s side holding a 35-3 lead at the interval, leaving the coach disappointed his players were unable to maintain their performance from the opening 40 minutes.
“We wanted to make sure that we finished them off,” said Robertson. “Sometimes it happens [that you don’t]. The great thing about that is we got Beauden [Barrett] to 10 and Rieko [Ioane] to left wing and got Anton [Lienert-Brown] on. We played the whole squad – we just lost a little bit of rhythm doing it.
“When we got down there, into the 22, we just didn’t finish a couple [of opportunities] off, which would have probably made it a bit sweeter. But the efforts were there that created those opportunities.”
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