With Kerevi missing, Faessler grabbed two tries from mauls and Wright took an intercept to also score, and by the time the Wallabies got 15 players back on the field, they’d added 21 points and snuffed out the Welsh hopes.
The Samu Kerevi tackle that saw him earn a red card.Credit: Getty Images
Wright and Ikitau added two more tries late to post 50 points for the first time since the Wallabies beat Japan 63-30 in 2017. It was just the third time in ten years an Australian team had scored 50 points for more.
“I thought the composure was really good,” Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt said. “Because at 19-13, you can start to feel you’re suffocating and I thought we lost our shape, even towards the end of the first half. We got a bit ragged. It was to get some momentum back in that second half and I felt in the last quarter we put some good stuff together again.”
Alaalatoa said he was “really proud” of the resilience shown by the Wallabies when down a man, and knowing they’d need to work harder than ever for each other.
“Especially being out there and feeling it, it was really special,” Alaalatoa said.
The Wallabies celebrate victory in CardiffCredit: Getty Images
“I think it is going to go a long way for our group. That’s that connection we have been trying to build, for months since July. It is all the little things we have been doing off the field, and the way the squad connects.
“Every little moment, every little training session, builds that character and for us, the way that we connected out there under pressure, was massive for our group and I think we will go a long way from that.”
The Wallabies looked good early and when Wright shimmied through the defence to score in the 12th minute, and when big Nick Frost reminded us about his junior athletics prowess by racing 50 metres to score from a turnover soon after, the visitors looked in good nick. Faessler then rolled in his first try as the maul tailgunner in the 21st minute.
But Wallabies’ mistakes and some tough Welsh defence helped Wales fight back with a try and two penalties. The second half turned on the Kerevi dismissal, but not the way people assumed.
With Skelton as an engine, the Wallabies turned to the rolling maul to get upfield and then score.
“We felt like the maul was giving us the ascendancy and it was an area we wanted to keep going,” Alaalatoa said.
And though they were bested at scrum time, the Wallabies forwards proved the fitter and crucially, were dominant at the lineout, snuffing out any hope of a Welsh fightback with key steals.
After a fortnight of superb form, Wright fittingly sealed the victory with the final try and in echoes of Wales’ record 40-6 win over the Wallabies in Lyon last year, many despondent Welsh fans began exiting the stadium well before fulltime.
Schmidt, whose record now sits at 6 wins from 11 Tests, wasn’t buying into questions about whether the Wallabies were daring to dream about finishing the second half of the Grand Slam.
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“Too far away to contemplate,” Schmidt said. “I have massive respect for Scotland. They will be very tough.”
Schmidt said the Wallabies would look at Kerevi’s case and consider making representations that the offence doesn’t deserve a suspension.
“He is distraught. 50th game for the Wallabies and he gets a red card. He was trying to drop into the tackle, I thought,” Schmidt said. “We will look at that closely, and potentially ask some questions through the right channels.”
