Rugby-Australia coach had faith his side would come back to beat Wales

Australia coach Dave Rennie said he always believed his side were capable of a comeback victory against Wales, who they beat 39-34 at the Principality Stadium on Saturday after being 21 points behind in the second half. Australia stormed back to grab a last-gasp try and turn around a desperate situation, winning for only the second time on their five-match European tour.

“I’m an eternal optimist, even in the first half when we were behind,” said Rennie, who avoided losing a 10th international in 14 tests this year. “I felt if we got a bit of continuity, we could have put a bit of heat on them. We were able to do that, the key was our ability to stay in the fight,”

Australia’s bench proved the difference despite the fact they had a threadbare squad at the end of an injury-filled tour. “A number of guys came off the bench and had a big say in the match” said Rennie. “The highlight for me is that we are creating more depth.”

Australia had already been hit by numerous injuries before the end-of-year tour and for Saturday’s test were without a further seven players who had featured earlier on the trip. “I’m most please about the fight within the group,” Rennie added at his post-match news conference.

“We barely had 25 to pick from and we didn’t do much training this week. We couldn’t afford any more injuries. We still had some contact training but not to the degree we normally would.” Australia and Wales meet in next year’s World Cup but Rennie dismissed any suggestion Saturday's result laid down a marker.

“It's probably irrelevant, but given we won we will use it. If we'd lost, we probably wouldn't," he said. "The time over here has been good for our group, for the belief, for the hard work, and for our supporters back in Australia and all over the world. They've been put through the wringer with us. So it was nice to get a result today.” (Writing by Mark Gleeson in Doha; Editing by Ken Ferris)

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