Cheika confident of Wallabies rebound

DUBLIN: Australia coach Michael Cheika says the Wallabies will rebound after getting over the hurt of Ireland dashing their dreams of emulating the 1984 side in a Grand Slam sweep of the Home Nations.

The 49-year-old — who had guided the team to wins over Wales and Scotland as well as France — admitted it had been frustrating to see his side come back from 17-0 down to lead after an hour and then lose 27-24 in a thrilling encounter.

“It is a very tough result,” said Cheika, who has lost both encounters with Ireland since he took over the reins in 2014.

“We’ll be hurting a lot tonight but then we’ll dust ourselves off for next week (they round off their tour against England, who whipped them 3-0 in an historic series victory Down Under earlier this year).

“You take disappointment forward with you. Okay that hurt but its not going to happen again. We can’t cry about it now it’s over.”

Cheika — who had a successful spell coaching Irish province Leinster to the 2009 European Cup trophy — admitted it had been frustrating watching his side fight back after an awful first half display but fail to finish off the Irish, who were a patchwork side by the end with several players playing out of position.

“Without talking about the decisions (of referee Jerome Garces) I was a little bit frustrated by the consistency of the maul rule,” said Cheika.

“That hurts a bit as we thought we had a couple ourselves. Ireland kept the ball and had the consistency with the ball.

“We conceded two silly tries in the first-half allowing the ball to bounce for the first one and then a huge big hole in our defence for the second one.

“In the second-half we had them on the back foot and I don’t know what happened to our defence but they got a third try.

“I was really pleased with the way we came back but we have to be much more disciplined — you can’t win matches like that.” AFP