Frustrated coach Ewen McKenzie will look to “dumb down” the Wallabies game after an embarrassing record thumping by South Africa at their former Suncorp Stadium fortress.
The Springboks busted their Australian east-coast hoodoo in style by overpowering Australia with a record 38-12 Rugby Championship victory on Saturday night.
The Wallabies slumped to their fourth straight Test loss – their worst streak in four years – and third under McKenzie in a bitterly disappointing display in front of 43,715 stunned fans.
Never before had Australia lost to the Springboks in seven meetings at the old Lang Park but that unbeaten record was dead in the water with 20 minutes to play.
The Boks dominated the under-strength home pack in the scrum, the collisions and the breakdown to lay the platform for a four-tries-to-nil drubbing – their biggest win against the Wallabies on Australian soil.
McKenzie would not lament the absence of noted enforcers James Horwill, Scott Higginbotham, Tatafu Polota-Nau, Wycliff Palu and David Pocock, nor offer any excuses.
He instead blamed poor execution in attack and “unacceptable” errors that hamstrung their expansive plans to run the visitors into the ground with an uptempo game.
“The bottom line is we made too many errors to win,” he said.
“In the end we have to say why are we making the errors? Either we’re playing a game that is too complicated or the skill level doesn’t match it.
“So we’ll go back and have a look. We’ll dumb it down a bit and make it a bit simpler.
“That would be disappointing. But we’ll look at the whole gamut.”
South Africa’s win more than doubled the margin of their previous Australian best – 18-6 at the SCG in 1971 – and also gave them their first win on the east coast in 14 matches since the code went professional in 1996.
While the Wallabies backline was hailed for its dangers pre-match, it was the Boks backs who lit the game up with a three-try blitz in eight minutes midway through the second half.
Although they were unable to go close to scoring in the first hour, Australia were still in the contest at 19-12 before Jean de Villiers started and finished a brilliant blind-side raid.
There were more specials skills from Ruan Pienaar and Willie Le Roux to put Zane Kirchner over four minutes later, and then Le Roux rubbed salt into Wallaby wounds by punishing a Quade Cooper turnover.
It wasn’t a great night for Cooper in his long-awaited return to the No.10 jersey as he struggled to spark Australia’s under-pressure attack.
McKenzie also pointed to his “unnecessary” act in giving away the penalty that led to the Springboks prop Coenie Oosthuizen barging over in the sixth minute.
Israel Folau’s move to fullback failed to reap the rewards expected as the game-breaker was often ignored out wide, and also well contained on kick returns.
Christian Lealiifano scored Australia’s only points through four three-pointers as they failed to capitalise on first-half attacking chances and the early sin-binning of flanker Willem Alberts.
Michael Hooper was yellow-carded in the second half for a tip tackle on Bryan Habana, but the Boks wreaked most of their havoc after he returned to the fray.
“When we got two scores behind do you shut up shop or do you try to win? We tried to win but all we did was dig a deeper hole,” McKenzie lamented.
