Cheika and Hansen in rare agreement: 'Dumb things' cost the Wallabies

Yokohama: Michael Cheika has lamented the Wallabies' poor discipline after a yellow card cost Australia a foothold in the third Bledisloe Cup Test.

Australia had held the All Blacks scoreless for almost 20 minutes in the middle of the match and narrowed the deficit to 17-13 before Beauden Barrett kicked a penalty goal and converted his own try to take it out to 27-13.

'Pretty dumb thing': Tolu Latu is sent from the field in the Wallabies' loss to the All Blacks in Yokohama.

‘Pretty dumb thing’: Tolu Latu is sent from the field in the Wallabies’ loss to the All Blacks in Yokohama.Credit:AP

Then replacement hooker Tolu Latu niggled his opposite number, Codie Taylor, with a slap coming out of a scrum. Soon after Taylor responded with a heavy shove and Latu retaliated with a palm in Taylor's face.

Ben Smith scored less than a minute after Latu was sent off by referee Romain Poite and though Israel Folau scored with four minutes to go, a final try to Rieko Ioane blew the scoreline out to 37-20.

New Zealand coach Steve Hansen said it was "probably" a soft yellow card from Poite and chastised his player, Taylor, for getting involved in an altercation, but added that when "you do dumb things, you get dumb reactions".

"You're not allowed to strike someone in the face so it was a pretty dumb thing, wasn't it," Hansen said.

"When you do dumb things, you get dumb reactions. The ref had no other option by the law and if he hadn't done it, [he] probably would have got churned up by his bosses, so he's just done what the law says he should do and given the guy 10 minutes."

Cheika concurred. "You shouldn't do it, it's pretty simple," he said. "At the same time as a footballer you don't want to get pushed. I don't think the referee was going to do anything about it because he kept coming towards him. Maybe that's the expectation on us.

"But he [Latu] shouldn't do it … it cost us 10 minutes and didn't achieve anything."

Cheika was flat after the game, as the Wallabies were dominated in the scrum and lineout and were not patient enough in attack. They made seven or eight linebreaks but only scored two tries.

Consolation: Israel Folau races away to score but the deficit was already too large.

Consolation: Israel Folau races away to score but the deficit was already too large.Credit:Stuart Walmsley/Rugby AU Media

"Just too many turnovers in key moments and too many turnovers in general," he said.

"We need to have a bit more perseverance with the ball in hand, not always try to hit the home run with the first play."

Captain Michael Hooper said he felt they were comfortably in the game until the last 20 minutes.

"I was feeling confident throughout, you saw what we could do in a short amount of time a couple of weeks ago [in Salta], so I know the ability is there to score points. Thirty-seven points stings us a bit … we spoke yesterday about defending better for longer and attacking better for longer and we didn't do that there around that 65-, 70-minute mark," Hooper said.

New Zealand attack coach Ian Foster said he was pleased with the All Blacks' patience in attack.

"They're never an easy team to break down and clearly they were pretty motivated in the first 30 minutes," Foster said.

"It took a while but we showed something that we perhaps didn't show a lot of in the last couple of weeks. We took our time and took our opportunities. That showed itself in Liam's try in particular. We were patient and played our way through it."

Source: Read Full Article