Valetini leads the way for Wallabies

THE good times keep on rolling at the start of Joe Schmidt’s tenure as Australia made it four wins on the spin for the first time since 2021 courtesy of an almighty performance from their back row.

- BEN JAYCOCK

Flankers Rob Valetini and Fraser McReight scored two tries each with further scores by Hunter Paisami and Isaac Kailea to give the Wallabies strong momentum going into the Rugby Championship.

“It is only three weeks that we’ve been together and we made 10 changes and we knew there was an element of risk in that,” said new head coach Schmidt. “But I like the way we built our way into the game, bar the early three points.

“We put a few nice tries together and built a lead and, yeah, it was really disappointing on the back of losing Filipo (Daugunu) that they got back into the game and we were scrambling just a little bit.”

Georgia, playing their first Test match in Australia, took a 3-0 lead with a penalty by Luka Matkava in the second minute, but that lead lasted only three minutes as Wallaby centre Paisami touched down.