‘We were the better side but the scoreboard doesn’t show that’

The regrets were plenty when Nathan Grey provided his hot take on his Junior Wallabies’ pool campaign at the Junior World Championship which finished with a 22-all draw versus England.

Having pulled level in the closing minutes in Athlone on Tuesday with an unconverted try, the Aussies had chances to grab the win that would have denied the English their semi-final qualification progress as the tournament’s best runner-up.

Victory wouldn’t have squeezed Grey’s squad into the Championship play-offs but all the same, it would have been nice to have beaten England to finish second in Pool B and alleviate some of the frustration felt after their second-round loss to pool winners Ireland last Thursday.

That 10-30 setback in Paarl had them fuming as a citing against an Ireland forward, who wasn’t penalised during the game, was deemed to be a red card offence at a subsequent disciplinary hearing.

It left Grey and co pondering how different that result might have been as the illegal collision took place on 35 minutes at a time when Australia were leading, and they would have then played against an opposition down a man for 45 minutes.

No wonder their lingering feeling that 2023 will be remembered as a campaign that maybe unfairly got away on them. “Frustrating and disappointing for our guys,” bemoaned Grey to RugbyPass in the wake of his team’s split with England. “We were the better side but the scoreboard doesn’t show that. That’s rugby.

“When you create opportunities you need to finish them off. The pleasing thing was we stayed in the contest and created, but the boys will be very frustrated that we didn’t nail those opportunities. The side has been getting better each pool game, which is important at a tournament.

“Our front row was immense. They had a very big shift. It was a difficult challenge playing England in that set-piece perspective, but our forwards were really, really good.

"The three pool games are done now and we will see where we land but the exciting thing for the players is we have got two more games, two more opportunities to play together and play the style of footy that we can be proud of.”

First up will be Tasman rivals New Zealand in a fifth-to-eighth-place semi-final on Sunday just weeks after the pair shared a two-match pre-tournament series. “I can guarantee that the players will be really excited about playing these next two games.

“We will take the learnings out of it, the positives. There is plenty of them but still, we have got to make sure we are executing and finishing off those opportunities we are creating.”