James Slipper says he wants his teammates to channel their “hurt”, after the Wallabies copped a beating by the Springboks on Saturday night in Sydney.
The Springboks were breathing fire but, as coach Dave Rennie said, the Wallabies “didn’t fire a shot” as the world champions flexed their muscles, securing a vital 24-8 win in front of a packed house.
Such was the noise South Africa’s fans made at the southern end when Damian de Allende thundered over that you might have been confused with the refurbished Allianz Stadium being Ellis Park.
The Springboks’ thunderous start was in stark contrast to the sleepy Wallabies, who were beaten in every aspect of the game.
For Slipper, a front-rower, his coach’s belief that the Wallabies were beaten in the “collision” area hurt the acting captain.
The veteran prop, who has led in the absence of Michael Hooper and is set to captain against the All Blacks for the first time when the trans-Tasman rivals meet on September 15 in Melbourne, said the Wallabies needed to channel their pain.
“I just wanted the boys to realise how much it hurts and hold on to that and let that drive you into the future,” he said.
“We can be disappointed for a day or two but at the end of the day, we’ve got the All Blacks coming up in two weeks.
“If you’re still kicking cans around at that time, then that’s not going to help anyone.
“I want it to hurt but at the same time I want it to be better. We got to be better. I just put a challenge to the group essentially.”
The powerful Springboks strangled the Wallabies from the outset.
Led by front-rowers Malcolm Marx and Steven Kitshoff and locks Eben Etzebeth and Lood de Jager, the Springboks won the battle up front.
But even Damian de Allende, who scored the opening try inside the first 10 minutes, was breathing fire with the world class inside centre setting the tone and denying the Wallabies any momentum and width in their backline.
“As you can imagine, pretty disappointed,” Slipper said.
“It’s pretty quiet in there.
“I made a point after the game that this one has to hurt a lot. I want the boys to hurt because yes, South Africa were good. (But) I just felt like we didn’t really play much rugby at all tonight.
“That winning the collision talk really hurts me.”
Rennie was equally flat following the match, believing the Wallabies did not play with desire in their attack and failed to “fire a shot”.
“The biggest thing was we needed to play with a bit more optimism tonight,” Rennie said.
“We were struggling to get our game going. We needed to play with a bit of tempo and kick smarter.
“We kicked a lot of ball out rather than kicking long or finding grass just in behind them where there was a fair bit of space.
“Even at 17-3, with 10 to go, we felt if we could get down the other end of the field and get some continuity, maybe we could claw this back.
“There was some excellent defence in amongst what we did tonight. But it felt like we didn’t fire a shot and they were very good at strangling us.”
READ MORE
‘We didn’t fire a shot’: Woeful Wallabies smashed by Springboks as tempers flare at packed SFS
Making matters worse, the fitness of Taniela Tupou remains unclear.
The giant prop failed to take the field after hurt his calf during a first-half warm-up.
It came either side of playmaker Noah Lolesio and inside centre Hunter Paisami suffering concussions, which forced a massive backline shuffle and meant the Wallabies were forced to play halfback Jake Gordon on the wing after going into the Test with a six forwards, two backs bench.
“We trained for worst case scenario,” Rennie said.
“Kells (Andrew Kellaway) has trained about a 13. Hodgey (Reece Hodge) at 10, Jake’s probably had about two moves on the wing, so not a lot but I thought I thought he was excellent.
“Both when he came on the wing and then when we moved him into nine.
“It’s not ideal. But it happens in footy nowadays but it obviously affected our continuity of play late in the game.”
What changes Rennie makes remains unclear, with either Bernard Foley or Kurtley Beale likely to come back into the frame when the third-year international coach names his squad for the Bledisloe series on Wednesday.
While Rory Arnold’s status for the Bledisloe Cup remains up in the air, with his new Japanese club likely to push for the towering lock to arrive well ahead of their upcoming season.
“They’re all possibilities. We’ll reassess, we’ll pick another squad from an All Black campaign point of view, and we’ll name that Wednesday,” Rennie said.
