Springboks’ ‘stupid rugby’ helps win after scores tied at halftime

BRISBANE: The Wallabies snapped a fourmatch losing streak and relieved pressure on coach Michael Cheika with a gritty 2318 win over the Springboks on Saturday.

It was not pretty, but Australia overcame the disruption of losing Israel Folau and Adam Coleman earlier in the day to grind out an important result and revive its Rugby Championship campaign.

After two tries apiece in the first half, the only points in the second came through a pair of Matt Toomua penalties, which settled the match in the home team’s favour at a slippery Suncorp Stadium.

Cheika said it was a fitting reward for effort.

‘‘When you really invest in your preparation . . . the things you prepare may not even happen on the field but then when someone comes to try to take it away from you, you tend to fight for it a lot more,’’ Cheika said.

‘‘When things went against us, we wanted to fight for it and get into it. Everyone held their nerve pretty well.’’

Toomua contributed 15 points to cap a strong outing in his first start in two years.

It is the first victory for the Wallabies since the opening test of their June series against Ireland, although critics of Cheika and his methods will not have been convinced by their performance.

After David Pocock (neck) was scratched from the team originally named by Cheika on Friday, the Wallabies had another two late withdrawals before the match in fullback Folau, still hampered by his ankle injury, and secondrow enforcer Coleman, sitting out due to family reasons.

They still got off to a bright enough start and crossed for the opening try in just the second minute through skipper Michael Hooper.

But their promising momentum was quickly stalled through illdiscipline, mistakes and poor defence — Bongi Mbonambi put South Africa ahead after a rolling maul obliterated the home side’s resistance on the quarterhour mark.

Its lead stretched out to 157 when Faf de Klerk picked out an unmarked Makazole Mapimpi with a lovely cutout ball.

However, the Springboks handed the Wallabies a massive lifeline in the 33rd minute — a badly overblown lineout throw from Mbonambi fell favourably for Toomua, who slid under the posts to reduce the margin to one point.

After dominating territory for the first chunk of the second half, the Wallabies finally regained the lead at 2018 via a Toomua penalty.

The introduction of impact prop Taniela Tupou helped ensure the Wallabies maintained the ascendancy, although they failed to convert any of the attacking opportunities they created.

Another penalty from Toomua in the 66th minute gave them a little more breathing space, but they had to hold out a fastfinishing South Africa until well after the siren to secure the win.

Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus rued his side’s decisionmaking, which he said undid their solid work in defence.

‘‘We could have put them away if we didn’t play stupid rugby at stages,’’ he said. — AAP