Ex-Wallaby highlights ‘key’ stat from Australia’s loss to England

Cameron Shepherd believes “intensity” was the main difference between the Wallabies and England during last weekend’s Autumn Nations Series clash, saying the men in gold “at times looked lazy” during the 25-7 defeat.

Australia had 55 per cent of possession throughout the 80-minute battle at Twickenham’s Allianz Stadium, but lost the territory battle 58-42, missed more tackles than the English, and were outscored four tries to one.

Harry Potter scored the Wallabies’ only try of the contest in the 33^rd minute, with the flyer picking off a pass before running the length of the field to score. Tane Edmed added the extras off the kicking tee, but the visitors failed to score any more points as England took control.

Henry Pollock was tripped up en route to the try line but managed to dive over for a popular score midway through the second term, before Alex Mitchell and Luke Cowan-Dickie scored a try each within the final 10 minutes.

Openside flanker Fraser McReight was a shining light for the Wallabies, having made a team-high 13 tackles and winning five turnovers, but it couldn’t save the Australians from a devastatingly one-sided defeat on the road.

“I thought the main thing that was the difference between the two teams was the intensity. I thought the Wallabies looked tired, at times looked lazy,” former Wallaby Shepherd said on Stan Sport’s Between Two Posts.

“Not being able to get around the corner and get the ball at speed and carry with that sort of intensity disrupted our whole attack.

“I feel also we became quite predictable at parts during the game where we were just camping forwards around the corner, purely going to them off the deck from nine, and not creating any extra opportunities.

“I thought [Tane] Edmed needed to take over. We needed to bring someone else in as a first receiver, either on the openside or the blindside, and start just creating new angles of attack into that English defence.

“Once they knew what was coming, they were getting up off the line. The key one that really stood out, 70 times we failed to make the gain line and we only carried the ball 137 times, so that’s literally half [of our carries].”

England fly-half George Ford opened the scoring midway through the first half with a successful shot at goal, before backrower Ben Earl crashed over for a five-pointer. With Ford converting the try, the home side raced out to a 10-0 lead.

As the Between Two Posts panel discussed, a key moment in the match was Potter’s try, with the winger racing about 95 metres to the house for an intercept try. But as former Wallaby Morgan Turinui explained, it was an all-or-nothing play.

“So he misses it, it’s a try, he doesn’t catch, it’s a yellow and a penalty try,” Turini reflected.

“Truthfully he’d had an average 30 minutes until then, they all had.

“That suddenly from 10-nil and probably an ugly score brewing, 10-7 going into half-time.”