Joe Schmidt has one game left to salvage something from his Wallabies tenure, and after a 42-26 capitulation against France, the maths is brutal: beat Italy in Perth next Saturday or leave with the worst win-loss record of any Australia coach in the professional era.
Australia led 21-12 at half-time in Brisbane before France scored 30 unanswered points to run away with it, condemning the Wallabies to a sixth straight loss and a ninth defeat in their past 10 Tests. It is the country's first six-game losing streak in a decade, and it has left the outgoing head coach searching for words.
"When you stack enough moments to lead at half-time, it's a little bit soul destroying," Schmidt said. He did not hide from the scale of the problem. "We're so desperate to win," he added, before reducing the week ahead to its bare essentials: "The wash-up? We just know we need to get a win next week. It's as simple as that."
Schmidt pointed to the fine margins that swung the contest. "There were a couple of really big turning points that got them back into the game," he said. "And our kicking game wasn't as accurate as it needed to be."
Captain Harry Wilson was equally frustrated, still processing how a match his side had controlled slipped away so completely. "Once we got the yellow card, they made us pay," Wilson said. "I'm still trying to put it together in my head. [There were] good patches, but rugby's dependent on the result and we need to be winning."
Wilson refused to use France's pedigree as cover. "France won the Six Nations, they're a bloody good team, but we need to win Test matches for our country," he said. "That's what we're here to do."
The defeat came on a night of grim circumstance for Australia, whose fly-half stocks have been decimated. With both Carter Gordon and Ben Donaldson ruled out by calf injuries, Schmidt handed a debut to third-choice No.10 Declan Meredith, thrust from the fringes of the squad into a duel with two of the world's best playmakers.
"It's a great honour to wear this jersey and be a part of such a great team. It's a boyhood dream come true," Meredith said, admitting there were tears in his eyes during the anthem. Schmidt felt the rookie was let down by the circumstances rather than himself. "A very tough night for Declan up against two world-class 10s playing 10 and 15 in the opposition," the coach said. "So a real baptism of fire for him, and he acquitted himself really well in the first half."
Schmidt hands over to incoming coach Les Kiss after the Italy Test, and the numbers frame just how much rides on it. A loss to a side ranked below Australia would drag his win rate to the bottom of the Wallabies' all-time list. A win would not fix a year that has lurched from setback to setback, but it would let a respected coach walk away without an unwanted record attached to his name.
