Rennie rescues Wallabies after dominant defeat in Argentina

Wallabies coach Dave Rennie has expressed his frustration after a record defeat to Argentina in San Juan.

The visitors were dominated from siren to siren as Los Pumas cruised to a 48-17 victory, looking like a team that is handling life properly without Michael Hooper and an almost full XV.

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It ends a fortnight that has seen multiple late changes and season-ending injuries to the likes of Quade Cooper and Samu Kerevi while Rennie criticized his inability to close the ball high.

“A massive disappointment. That’s not good enough,” manager Dave Rennie said after the game.

“We conceded four tries with kicks between us and dominated in the touchline. We created a lot of chances but we have to be patient and our rucks are not a disaster.

“We weren’t clinical enough … we definitely lacked cohesion with some changes. We’ll look at the pictures but we’re better than that.

“It’s a big disappointment. We want to earn the respect of the country, but you don’t do that with performances like this”.

Captain James Slipper echoed those thoughts, crediting an Argentina side that were clinical with ball in hand as dominant in all facets of the game.

“Coming off a good performance last week we were really keen to back it up and we just didn’t come up to standard today,” added captain James Slipper.

“I thought the Argentinians were good today and they took the momentum from the crowd, they were a tough team to keep up with big credit to them.

“We’re excited to be back home, it’s been a really tough tour for us, so now we’ve got the South Africans twice at home, which we’re really looking forward to and being in front of our fans again.”

Rennie refused to use the growing injury list as an excuse as they were overcome.

“We would (like) have a consistent squad list, but we had a good enough side to get the job done,” he believes.

“We gave them a few soft points at the start and we battled back. We need to improve and we’ll get a few players back. Whoever puts the shirt on has to step up, but we weren’t good enough.”

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