Australia coach Joe Schmidt is bracing himself for another major challenge when he takes the Wallabies to Argentina later this month after suffering back-to-back defeats against South Africa in the opening two rounds of the Rugby Championship.
Schmidt saw his side handed a 30-12 defeat in Perth on Saturday, one week after opening their campaign with a loss against the world champions, and the coach knows more challenges lie ahead when the Wallabies travel to South America.
“One of the things about this competition is it’s not going to get any easier,” said Schmidt.
“We play three of the four (World Cup) semi-finalists and we weren’t one of them. It doesn’t get easier going to Argentina next.
“They’ve demonstrated how tough they can be to beat when they toppled the All Blacks and didn’t even give them a bonus point.”
Schmidt’s side will play twice against a Pumas side that opened their own campaign with victory over New Zealand in Wellington last week before being brought back down to earth by Scott Robertson’s side on Saturday in Auckland.
The Wallabies, meanwhile, put on a battling display against a much-changed Springboks side but trailed 11-9 at the interval before Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus introduced his experienced players from the bench.
World Cup winning hooker Malcolm Marx crossed twice in the second half as South Africa opened up an unassailable lead, the world champions eventually sealing a comfortable win in the rain.
“We didn’t die wondering,” Schmidt said. “We chanced our arm a few times in pretty tough conditions.
“It was tough going to be able to carry (the ball) in these conditions and they turned over a fair amount of ball as well. We scrambled back and survived a couple of early threats as well, and I was proud of the effort that was made.
“I didn’t want us to just try not to lose because I think, particularly in that first half, we wanted to go out and be ahead at halftime.
“Give ourselves the confidence that when they unleashed that bench that they had that we had already earned a pretty combative, competitive first 40 and maybe a narrow lead.”
