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Forty-three cards in 47 Tests: Why the Wallabies are always their own worst enemy

7 0
13.08.2024

There were lots of contrasting stats columns that told the tale of how the Springboks thumped the Wallabies in Brisbane on Saturday, like post-contact metres, missed tackles and points-per-visit to respective 22s.

But a tackle by Boks centre Jesse Kriel on Wallabies flanker Carlo Tizzano did a pretty good job on its own. There have been milder car crashes.

In the 17th minute of his debut Test, Tizzano carried the ball and Kriel got low and sent him aerially backwards, with arms and legs flying like he’d come off a car bonnet.

Not for the first time, the Wallabies made no headway against the South African defence and a few minutes later the visitors broke upfield through Willie Le Roux. The Boks scored a second try soon after and then a third, and at 21-0, it was game over in every way bar the game clock.

But in truth, the plainest tale of the Wallabies’ defeat in Brisbane for the Wallabies can be traced to the same place it is now always found: the column labelled “Discipline”.

Be it via penalty counts or yellow and red cards, the Wallabies’ discipline has been intractably bad for around three years now and the Suncorp Stadium defeat was more of the........

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