SWAIN England floored
EDDIE JONES admitted his England side blew a golden chance to beat a 14-man Wallabies side. Australia were a man down when lock Darcy Swain was sent off on 34 minutes for an innocuous headbutt on opposite number Jonny Hill.
Hill was sin-binned at the same time for pulling Swain’s hair but once he came back on, England should have powered home.
But Billyvunipola’s second-half yellow for a high shot on Aussie captain Michael Hooper gave thewallabies a way back into the game.
And that meant Jones’ eightmatch winning streak against the land of his birth was ended.
England’s attack misfired, they got on the wrong side of ref James Doleman and only looked a threat when rookies Henry Arundell and Jack van Poortvliet scored a try each.
Arundell’s was right out of the top drawer as he beat four defenders to score with his first touch in Test rugby six minutes after coming on.
The scoreline flattered England who were well beaten in every department but Jones admitted they missed an open goal.
He said: “We had opportunities to really try to push them and we let them off.you pay for that.
“We are not using the referee as an excuse but the referee changes and you have to adapt.
“You have got to paint good pictures at the breakdown and we were not doing that and we went back to old habits. We are trying to play a slightly different way tactically and we probably let them off when we should have scored.
“There were times when we were getting really quick ball and we were allowing them to recover.
“We needed to keep playing on top of them and keep pressure on them.”
Australia lost playmaker Quade Cooper before the kick-off. He pulled a calf in the warm-up and was ruled out. But his replacement Noah Lolesio slotted in with 15 points from the boot and James O’connor came straight from a hospitality box and on to the bench.
The Aussies also lost full-back Tom Banks and prop Allan Alaalatoa in the first half but still managed to finish on top.
Ellis Genge’s try had put England
14-9 up after the break and with the Aussies a man down the dam looked like it had burst.then referee Doleman whistled England off the park but it was their own fault.
Jones added: “You look at the history of the game, whenever you get a red card the referee evens it up. It happens, that’s normal and we’ve got to be good enough to handle it.
“The team gets a red card and the opposition gets evened up, because they’re nice blokes, referees.
“I’m not criticising the referees, I’m not using it as an excuse, that’s the reality of rugby.”