Wallabies coach slams team post draw against Argentina
BERLIN: French striker Jean-philippe Mateta fired Bundesliga strugglers Mainz to their first win of the season on Sunday, scoring three first-half goals to inspire his side to a 3-1 victory away to Freiburg.
The 23-year-old notched up his second hattrick of the season to take his tally to ten goals in all competitions as Mainz hauled themselves out of the botom two for the first time since the opening weekend.
Having picked up just a single point from their first seven games, Mainz put their earlyseason woes behind them with a clinical first half performance. Mateta opened the scoring ater just 61 seconds, breaking Freiburg’s high line to pick up a Leandro Barreiro through ball and stroke it past former team-mate Florian Mueller in the Freiburg goal.
The goal set the tone for a first half in which Mainz landed blow ater blow on the counteratack and Freiburg struggled to keep tabs on Mateta.
The Frenchman doubled the lead just ater the half-hour mark, pouncing on the rebound ater Mueller spilled a long-range effort from Robin Quaison.
He completed his hat-trick a few minutes later, beating the offside trap yet again to slot the ball inside the far post from close range.
Nils Petersen pulled a goal back for Freiburg on 64 minutes, tapping in from close range ater Robin Zentner palmed away a low shot from Roland Sallai.
While Mainz breathe a sigh of relief, defeat heaps pressure on Freiburg, who have not won since the opening day and now sit just one place ahead of Mainz in 14th.
Earlier, Erling Braut Haaland neted four goals and Youssoufa Moukoko became the youngest player in Bundesliga history on Saturday as Borussia Dortmund routed Hertha Berlin 5-2 to trim Bayern Munich’s lead at the top of the table to just a point.
It was the first time the 20-year-old Haaland had scored four goals in a game for Dortmund since his January debut, with all of them coming in the second half.
“I drank a Red Bull at half time, I got some wings and everything was good,” said Haaland.
The Norwegian now has 10 goals in seven Bundesliga matches this season to give him a total of 31 goals in 30 games in all competitions for Dortmund.
NEWCASTLE: A “disappointed and frustrated” Australia coach Dave Rennie says his team must do beter ater blowing a chance to beat a stoic Argentina, complaining his Wallabies players appeared to get bored.
Australia were 15-6 ahead with barely 20 minutes let of their Tri Nations clash in Newcastle, north of Sydney, on Saturday evening, but poor decision-making and ill-discipline allowed the Pumas back into the game.
It ended in a bruising and try-less 15-15 draw, with Rennie not happy.
“Really frustrated. Really disappointed,” he said. “At 15-6 we had control of the game. We had chances to pin them in the corners. We had a fair bit of success from kicking but it’s like we got bored of it.
“We should have closed that out,” he added. “We’ve really got ourselves to blame. It’s got to be beter right across the board.
“We’ve got to be more clinical and turn pressure into points. Really Argentina never looked like scoring a try all night.”
Australia had all the early possession and should have wrapped up the game in the first half, but two disallowed tries hindered their progress.
They went to the break 9-6 in front and stretched the lead to nine points before they let Argentina back into the game with silly infringements and poor execution.
“If we could have scored straight ater halftime, it probably would have blown the game open. They’d made a lot of tackles and we felt they were fatiguing and they were just hanging in there,” said Rennie.
“But we didn’t put them out of it and it hurt us in the end.”
Playmaker Nicolas Sanchez, via his lethal boot, again scored all the Pumas points to take his tally to 40 from two matches. His opposite number Reece Hodge also nailed five penalties.
But Hodge crucially missed the one that mattered, sending what should have been a matchwinning kick wide with two minutes remaining.
Ater their upset of New Zealand last week and the draw on Saturday, Argentina find themselves in prime position to lit the Tri Nations trophy.
All three teams have six points, but the South Americans have a game in hand.
They face a crunch return clash against the All Blacks next weekend before meeting Australia again.