“Devastated. Embarrassed. Gutted.”
That was how Wallabies players have summed up their World Cup thrashing from Wales, which set records for all the wrong reasons.
Barring a miracle concerning pool rivals Fiji, Eddie Jones’s men will become first Australian team not to make the quarter-finals, following the biggest loss in the Wallabies’ proud tournament history.
After a few tears were shed out on the field in the wake of the 40-6 horror show in Lyon, the sombre players filed onto the team bus, shell-shocked by their dire showing.
“It’s a tough pill to swallow. We let the country down, we let ourselves down – pretty embarrassing to be honest,” said lock Richie Arnold.
Prop Angus Bell said his emotions were raw after the game, in which Wales piled on 33 unanswered points while the Wallabies didn’t manage to score a try.
“It’s a devastating day and I guess it’s pretty raw at the moment,” Bell said.
“We all wanted to go and win a World Cup. It’s just devastating. The players and obviously Eddie, we were all really upset.”
Vice-captain Tate McDermott blamed his team’s poor discipline, which was also a factor in their loss to Fiji – their first in tournament history against the island nation.
McDermott didn’t want to use youth as an excuse despite Wales boasting roughly 400 more caps after Jones controversially omitted a number of senior players from the Cup squad.
“I don’t like the word ‘young’ because it’s an excuse, particularly for this group,” said the halfback, who was one of his team’s best contributors.
“There’s a lot of young people in the squad, but to perform like that, regardless of your age when you’re in a game, as important as that for the country – it’s not the team we want to be.
“I’m proud of this group, but it’s very hard to kind of defend the whole team for that performance.”
Fullback Andrew Kellaway had his first start of the tournament after being overlooked for the win over Georgia and loss to Fiji.
He also didn’t want to use the team’s lack of experience as an excuse.
“I don’t know if it was a lack of experience, I think we just got bashed,” Kellaway said.
“At the set-piece they beat us, they out-kicked us, they showed us how to manage a game. Pretty well every area of the game tonight we got beaten.
“You can call it what you want; we got beaten at rugby, unfortunately. I don’t know if that’s an experience thing, that’s just a rugby thing.
“We’re all gutted, absolutely gutted.”
