Wallabies player ratings: ‘Shocking’ defending costly while Angus Bell has ‘nightmare’ scrummaging outing at Murrayfield
Split with Australia's Andrew Kellaway and Angus Bell.
Following Scotland’s 27-13 win over Australia at Murrayfield, here are our player ratings from Joe Schmidt’s Wallabies.
Backline
15 Tom Wright: Completely ineffective compared to last week. It was not necessarily his fault as he did not get much ball to work with and spent most of the game mopping up the backfield. 5
14 Andrew Kellaway: An outing he would like to forget with a shocking seven missed tackles including a basic tackle situation in the Sione Tuipulotu try. Spent a lot of the game in the midfield where he didn’t improve. 3
13 Joseph Suaalii: Had a decent start to the game before he had to leave the field after a big tackle where he appeared to hurt his shoulder. N/A
12 Len Ikitau: Always a confident defender but is also partially to blame for the Tuipulotu try. There was very little to work with otherwise in the clash. 5
11 Harry Potter: The wing was very quiet on debut until he burst into life, showing off his pace to skip through and expertly dive on loose ball. Good try but quiet first Test in general. 6
10 Noah Lolesio: Started the match with a very poor kick-off and was robbed of much go-forward ball. Lolesio is great on attack when the Wallabies are firing but it’s these kinds of games where he tends to fall short. 4
9 Jake Gordon: The scrum-half was also not at his best for this one as he was outshone in the kicking department by his opposite number Ben White. Gordon ticked the boxes elsewhere. 5
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Poor pack
8 Harry Wilson: The skipper was back in action this evening but failed to make the impact he would have liked. The stats will say 11 carries but some of those were littered with handling errors. Not his best nor his worst. 5
7 Carlo Tizzano: A difficult one to rate as he made an effort to disrupt the flow of the game through the breakdown and did just that. However, he was penalised thrice for those efforts which ultimately proved costly. A great fetcher but miles off Fraser McReight. 6
6 Rob Valetini: Uncharacteristically quiet. The John Eales Medal winner only made six carries which is vastly less than normal. On defence, he made 10 tackles which is good enough. 6
5 William Skelton: At times his physicality showed but it was far from commanding by the gargantuan second-row. Made a decent amount of tackles in a clash he was not part of at times. 5
4 Lukhan Salakaia-Loto: Thrown in late for a sick Jeremy Williams and did alright but not much better than that at all. Some decent interventions in the line-out but not enough to dramatically influence the game. 5
3 Allan Alaalatoa: Not quite as bad as his propping partner in the scrum but he also has to be held accountable for that facet which was far off tonight. 4
2 Brandon Paenga-Amosa: Another player who was thrown in late and it showed in the line-out mainly. He was more or less average everywhere else. 4
1 Angus Bell: Will have nightmares about Zander Fagerson eating him alive in the scrum. Not his best showing at all. 3
Replacements: Max Jorgensen is the shining light here having filled in very nicely for Suaalii while Tate McDermott added some massive energy and probably should have been put on earlier. Other than that the front-row subs struggled. 6