The Joe Schmidt verdict on Samu Kerevi's marred milestone

The Wallabies will battle to ensure Samu Kerevi’s tour isn’t over after the returning centre was left “distraught” by his red card for a dangerous tackle, the one sour note in their record-shattering win over Wales.

As they celebrated their biggest-ever haul of points in a Cardiff Test with the 52-20 thumping, coach Joe Schmidt wasn’t hiding his disappointment that Kerevi’s landmark 50th cap in the centre should be marred by an undeserved punishment.

The likelihood is Kerevi could miss the Scotland Test next weekend at Murrayfield, which would be a significant blow for the Wallabies’ hopes of winning the third leg of their British Isles ‘grand slam’ quest.

The Japan-based 31-year-old was not expected to be available for the final match of the tour against Ireland in Dublin anyway, so his tour could be over unless Australian officials successfully fight his corner.

Kerevi was shown a yellow card, later upgraded to red, at the start of the second half after his tackle on Jac Morgan ended with his shoulder and forehead crashing into the Welsh flanker’s cheek.

Ruled as highly dangerous by the TMO, the decision to upgrade to the 20-minute red didn’t go down well with the Wallabies who felt there were mitigating circumstances, with Morgan having dipped into the collision late and effectively turning it into a ‘high’ tackle.

“We’re pretty disappointed with that decision around Samu, and we’ll have a look at that,” said Schmidt.

“It’s pretty tough for Samu to be sent off in that tackle. He is distraught. Fiftieth game for the Wallabies and he gets a red card.

“He was trying to drop into the tackle, I thought. We were surprised that there was no mitigation, particularly because Jac played on, and there was no ping on his mouthguard, so it was then described as high danger.

“We will look at that closely, and potentially ask some questions through the right channels.”

It could have been worse for the Wallabies later after new boy Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii also had a dubious hit on Morgan, but it went unpunished, with the cross-code star, who played just 17 minutes off the bench, now set to be starting in midfield next week in Kerevi’s absence.

Remarkably, the Australians, only narrowly 19-13 ahead when Kerevi was dismissed, were able to make light of being one man down for that entire third quarter as they ran in three of their eight tries, leaving Schmidt and captain-for-the-day Alan Alaalatoa declaring their pride in the team.

“Very proud. It was really special. For us to connect like the way that we did today out there under pressure was massive for our group. And I think we’re going to go a long way from that,” said Alaalatoa.