What the Wallabies players said after their Rugby World Cup defeat to Wales

Australia’s Rugby World Cup is all but over following an “embarrassing” defeat to Wales. Where did it all go wrong? Here’s what the Wallabies players said after the record loss.

Richard Arnold reacts following the Wallabies’ loss to Wales. Picture: Getty Images

The Wallabies’ Rugby World Cup campaign is all but over following a record defeat to Wales in Lyon.

Heading into the clash knowing it was win-or-bust following last week’s shock 22-15 defeat to Fiji — the first time they had lost to the Pacific Islanders in 69 years — Australia were completely outplayed to fall to a 40-6 loss.

Here’s what the Wallabies players said after their World Cup humiliation.

CARTER GORDON:

“We let each other down. We let the country down. It’s obviously frustrating to be knocked out of the World Cup like that. We have one more game, we are going to have to regroup.

“We have a great squad, the performances haven’t shown that but we have heaps of leaders and experience in the team.”

Carter Gordon says the Wallabies have let Australia down. Picture: Getty Images

TATE MCDERMOTT:

“That’s a result we’re going to have to live with. We let not only the people who supported us in the crowd down from Australia, there was heaps of fans out there.

“There’s nowhere to run now. We’ve worked a lot on the connection piece of this group. It’s easy in the good times when you’re winning. We haven’t had many of them this year, so it’s a resilient group. It’s not good enough to turn out in what is a do or die game for us and perform like that.

“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. It’s very hard to kind of defend the whole team for that performance.”

ANDREW KELLAWAY:

“We just got bashed. 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 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.

“Next week’s going to be a tough week, obviously. We’re hurting now and no doubt Portugal will have seen that and they’ll be licking their lips.”

BEN DONALDSON:

“We’ve let ourselves down, we’ve let the country down and everyone in Australia. It wasn’t too much we could say in the sheds other than we weren’t good enough.

“We thought we were good enough, we did all the prep and we know we trained really well off the back of last week. We thought we were going to put a good performance in and it was clear out there we weren’t and we have to own that.”

Ben Donaldson says the Wallabies have to own their loss to Wales. Picture: Getty Images

ANGUS BELL:

“It’s very disappointing, pretty raw at the moment. How much emotion all the boys are showing — it’s a devastating day and I guess it’s pretty raw at the moment.

“We all wanted to go and win a World Cup. It’s just devastating, the players and obviously Eddie, we were all really upset and as I said before, it’s very raw. It’s devastating.

“We’re shattered. It’s hard for us to put into words. Obviously, there’s a lot of people that came over to France to support us and the people back home who got up early mornings to support us.”

RICHIE ARNOLD:

“It’s a tough pill to swallow, we let the country down, we let ourselves down – pretty embarrassing to be honest.

“F… mate, what didn’t go wrong? I thought we started well and then we just got into a bit of a grind, they just wanted to play in that grind.”

Richie Arnold says the Wallabies’ performance was ‘pretty embarrassing’. Picture: Getty Images

SULI VUNIVALU:

“I’d have to go back and re-watch the game. I’m still a bit rattled from that result.

“What we heard is he is still committed to Australian rugby and we’ll stick to what he said. If the media go out and say he has already signed with Japan, I’ve got no idea about it. Eddie is committed to Rugby Australia and we’ll stick by him.

“It’s a tough one to swallow but we’re not done here. We have one more game next weekend and we have to up our game next week. Everyone is pretty tight and will be gutted for the next 24 hours. We’ll be back.”

Originally published as What the Wallabies players said after their Rugby World Cup defeat to Wales