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Australia coach Joe Schmidt is ready for another big challenge when he takes his side to Argentina later this month following back-to-back defeats to South Africa in the opening two rounds of the Rugby Championship.
Schmidt saw his side thrashed 30-12 in Perth on Saturday, having lost to the world champions just a week earlier, and the coach knows Australia will face more challenges when they travel to South America.
“One of the things about this game is it doesn’t get easier,” Schmidt said.
“We played three of the four (World Cup) semi-finalists and we weren’t one of them. It’s not going to be easy against Argentina next.”
“They’ve shown how hard they are to beat when they beat the All Blacks and didn’t give them any extra points.”
Schmidt’s side will play two games against the Panthers, who opened the new season with a win over New Zealand in Wellington last week before being beaten by Scott Robertson’s side in Auckland on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the Kangaroos fought hard against a heavily-changed Springboks side but were trailing 11-9 at half-time before Springboks coach Lassie Erasmus brought on experienced substitutes.
World Cup-winning hooker Malcolm Marks struck twice in the second half to give South Africa an unassailable lead as the world champions cruised to a comfortable victory in the rain.
“We didn’t die of worry,” Schmidt said. “We risked our lives a few times in pretty tough conditions.”
“It was very difficult to dribble the ball in those conditions and they conceded quite a few goals. We fought back and withstood a couple of early threats and I’m proud of our efforts.
“I didn’t want to just try to not lose because I think, especially in the first half, we wanted to be leading at halftime.
“Give them the confidence, and when they unleash the bench they have, we’ve won a pretty tight, competitive top 40 and probably won by a narrow margin.”
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