Michael Cheika has apologised to fans of the Wallabies after shipping a heavy test defeat to England.
Australia needed a win in Melbourne yesterday to push the series to a third game when they meet next weekend in Sydney, but England prevailed on a 23-7 scoreline.
Despite dominating possession in the first half, Cheika's side had just a converted try to show for their efforts as England's Owen Farrell scored late in the game to secure the win for Eddie Jones's team.
Cheika said that the team let themselves down by failing to profit from owning 68 per cent of the ball, 56 per cent of territory and covering 700m.
"Obviously, we're very disappointed and we apologise to our fans. Honestly, we've had such great support and it's very disappointing to me – too many errors; too many dropped balls at key moments."
"(We) had plenty of opportunities to score, dropped the ball on several occasions close to the line and I don't think we trusted our skills in the key moments."
"We've got to own this. I feel for the fans. England deserved to win both Tests and we've got to be better."
And Cheika volunteered to take full responsibility of their dismal performance.
"I've got to really own that as a coach. We prepare that in the prep of the week. I've got to explain it to the lads more forcefully. I've got to make sure that message is clear. I know we want to play a lot of footy, that's how we want to play the game - stack more passes, stack more rucks."
"It doesn't always convert into the scoreboard. That will happen sometimes, playing that way but it shouldn't happen regularly."
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