Gatland targets an autumn sweep after Wales punish wasteful Wallabies
WALES 9 AUSTRALIA 6 NEVER before have Wales won all of their autumn internationals, but with wins over Scotland and now Australia, momentum is growing by the week. Before Saturday, Wales had not beaten Australia for a decade. This is a brave new world, though, and asked if his side could complete the autumn set for the first time by beating Tonga and South Africa, coach Warren Gatland said: ‘Yeah, it would be nice wouldn’t it? It is nice to get that win against a southern hemisphere team, so there is a bit of pressure on the guys who will take the field against Tonga. We’ve had a good run against South Africa in recent years, so it would be nice if we could win that one. We will have got a lot of confidence from today. There is some real momentum at the moment and that is now seven wins in a row. ‘There is a lot at stake in terms of Six Nations and World Cup places. We feel we are in a really good place and we’re looking forward to the next year. We will definitely get better as a team over the next six months.’ This victory over Australia was rather dreary. Wales never looked likely to score a try and could have easily lost if Michael Hooper had not pointed to the corner with two second-half penalties — which the Wallabies messed up — instead of to the posts. Australia could have taken six points to punish Leigh Halfpenny for two dreadful misses — but they did not. Matt Toomua and Bernard Foley took their kicks, Halfpenny hit two and Dan Biggar the last to win the match, much to the relief of centre Jonathan Davies. ‘It would have been sickening to lose,’ he said. ‘We got ourselves in a position where we had the chance to win. We expect to win big games now. We’ve got great strength in depth and confidence. ‘Our record against Australia hasn’t been great, but there is a new batch of players coming through who haven’t had that
hanging over them. And you could see the confidence in the squad. But the most important thing is that we’re building for something bigger.’ That something is the World Cup next year, but in the here and now Wales are making new history. This is their best run under Gatland. And only four Wales sides have won more than seven games consecutively. Nine victories and an autumn sweep is in their sights.