Wallabies star follows Rieko Ioane’s lead as he claps back at Ben Youngs after defeating England
Wallabies centre Len Ikitau celebrates and an insert of ex-England scrum-half Ben Youngs.
Ex-England scrum-half Ben Youngs was left with egg on his face on Saturday after the Wallabies claimed a 42-37 victory at Twickenham Stadium.
England looked on track for a victory over Australia as they led Joe Schmidt’s side 37-35 with just minutes left on the clock.
However, a brilliant offload from centre Len Ikitau freed up the space down the wing for Max Jogensen who sprinted through to score the match-winning try for the Wallabies who snapped a three-game winning streak.
Bullish Ben Youngs
Youngs was bullish ahead of the match and gave the Wallabies no chance at Twickenham as he believed that England would win comfortably.
“Australia, don’t waste my time, do you know what I mean,” he said on the For The Love Of Rugby podcast last month.
Dan Cole, who featured against Australia in the fixture, was worried that Youngs’ comments would come back to haunt England which proved to be the case.
“That’s a potential banana skin in some regards because Australia will target that game,” Cole said.
“You think it will be an easy game, but I think it will be a tough game. England will come off first game and the emotion of New Zealand – win or lose – and you’ve then got Australia, who if they beat England at Allianz [Twickenham], they could lose every other game and it would be the best thing for Australia rugby ever.”
However, Youngs insisted that it would be an easy game for Borthwick’s men.
“Against Australia, I stand by it mate, just go and get the business done,” he said.
“Joe Schmidt, he will have a couple of clever plays, it wouldn’t surprise me if Australia score a couple of nice tries, but other than that… I don’t want to say it.”
Len Ikitau claps back
Following the match, Wallabies centre Ikitau – who came up with the decisive play – hit out at Youngs on Instagram.
The 26-year-old posted images of himself in action against England as well as pictures of him and his teammates celebrating along with a clip of Youngs from the podcast.
He captioned the post “Say less” with shushing and zipped lips emojis.
Australia now head to Cardiff where they will take on Wales before concluding their Autumn Nations Series with match-ups against Scotland and Ireland.
Ikitau is not the first player this weekend to hit out at comments in the press by former players as Rieko Ioane took a swipe at Johnny Sexton after the All Blacks ended Ireland’s 19-game home winning streak on Friday evening.
