AUSTRALIA HEAD COACH Michael Cheika heaped the praise on his side’s defence after they fended off Argentina to make it into the World Cup final.

Despite conceding 15 points from penalties alone the Australians held the Pumas try-less for the first time in the tournament, and ran in four tries of their own to book their place in Saturday’s decider.

And speaking after the win, Cheika said that although his side need to work on the penalty count, it was his defence that won them the game.

“I think what we did was we left the game a bit open, which suited them. Initially we kept it a bit more structured which suited us but I’m really happy with the lads’ defence. They’re a really attacking team, they tore Ireland apart last week, and we had to work hard to stop them scoring a try.

“Penalties are a part of the game, we gave away too many in the first half. We tried to rectify that a bit in the second half, which we did a little bit, we still gave away a few too many, but overall I’m happy we scored four tries, I think we can improve again, and I think that’s really important to improve again.”

The former Leinster coach maintains that they have yet to consider the challenge New Zealand will pose next week, having put all of their focus on getting past Argentina.

I haven’t even thought about it, all we’ve been thinking about is this game, and that’s genuine.

Tonight we can think we’ve given ourselves an opportunity to play in a World Cup final and well work out how we’re going to do it against a pretty dynamic team.”

Originally published 25 October at 18.59

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