Gatland admitted that Wales had specifically tried to use the choke tackle to slow the Wallaby attack down.
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Rugby World Cup folklore is often carved out on the back of moments of creative genius or dazzling attack.
Despite delaying any possible match-up with New Zealand or South Africa until the final match of the tournament, Wallabies coach Michael Cheika refuses to describe his team’s path to the final as the less treacherous one.
Australia held off a desperate Welsh side despite being two men down in the Rugby World Cup to take a 15-6 win on Saturday and finish atop Group A.
If their demolition of England was a scintillating display in attack, this win against Wales was a masterclass in defence as the Australians came through a 10-minute spell unscathed in the second half, despite being reduced to 13 men.
“Even though we were down initially, players are already looking forward to that quarterfinal against a team we’ve beaten in the last 12 months”, Warburton said of the Welsh reaction to the loss.
With ball in hand, Australia struggled to get over the gainline but Wales gave away a string of penalties contesting the ball on the ground and earned a final warning from referee Craig Joubert. Against South Africa, there’s slightly better recent form. Wales will play South Africa at Twickenham on Saturday whi le Aust ra lia plays Scotland, who clinched the final playoff place on Saturday, in the same stadium a day later.
“Being able to bounce back, that’s what great teams are made of”, Warburton said.
“That’s why we’re disappointed”.
“We should have capitalised when they were down to 13 men, but we didn’t, and you have got to move on”. England may be out but their World Cup is still very much alive.
They lost Johnny Sexton – the one player everyone said they couldn’t afford to lose; their captain and their seriously good flanker Peter O’Mahoney to what looked like significant injuries in all three cases. “It’s just another game next week”. Where’s the Welsh flair that we’ve seen?
A 50th-minute penalty by Foley added three more points onto Australia’s tally, but bad news was on its way as Genia, then Mumm, was sin-binned for technical offences, as Wales advanced to within five yards of the try-line.
Warburton said it’s a decision that he’s happy with. Once again the Wallabies had managed to absorb everything that Wales could throw at them and emerge victorious by a mere nine points.
“You’ve got to give credit to Australia for defending like that”, Wales Coach Warren Gatland said.
“I thought we were aggressive in the contact area, so there are a lot of positives to take out of it, but the big lesson is if we spend that much time in their 22 we have got to come away with a try really”.
“We had no option there but to dig really deep at that stage where we had two guys off and only had 13 players”. He said that the youthful streak in the springbok squad has been impressive.
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Camped on their own goal line, Australia just kept scrambling and tackling and eventually forced a penalty from a brilliant spot tackle by Adam Ashley-Cooper.
