|
A try in the corner by Australian playmaker Kurtley Beale with 20 seconds left on the clock condemned Wales to a dramatic 14-12 defeat yesterday. |
The loss meant that Wales, the current Grand Slam champions and World Cup semi-finalists, were forced out of the top-eight seeds for the 2015 World Cup, the draw for which takes place on Monday.
The game had looked to be going Wales’ way at 12-9 with a minute to play, but replacement flanker Dave Dennis found a metre of space out wide with the Welsh defence flagging and fed Beale, who outpaced Alex Cuthbert to the corner.
It was a ninth victory in 15 Tests of a marathon season for Australia and meant they leapfrogged South Africa into second in the IRB rankings.
But the defeat was Wales’ seventh on the trot and denied them the chance of a first win over a southern hemisphere nation since their 2008 victory over the same opposition.
Leigh Halfpenny kicked four penalties for Wales, who had lost November matches against Argentina, Samoa and New Zealand, with Beale notching up three of his own for the visitors.
Beale missed two other penalty attempts and replacement Mike Harris another in the sixth match between the two sides in 13 months, the Wallabies winning all five previous encounters, including the third-place play-off at the World Cup and a closely-fought three-Test series on Australian soil in the summer.
Beale missed a straightforward early penalty attempt as referee Wayne Barnes took to his whistle against a series of sloppy Welsh ruck infringements.
The visitors, fielding just three players from last year’s season-ending victory in Cardiff, dominated early possession and territory, but it was Wales who first set the stadium alight when Cuthbert was set free on his own line.