Wallabies score four 1st-half tries to beat Georgia 40-29 and stay perfect on the season

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia scored four first-half tries Saturday and hung on to beat Georgia 40-29 to win its third consecutive match to start the season.

The Wallabies led 26-10 at halftime to keep Joe Schmidt’s record perfect in his start as head coach. Schmidt was named to the position in January, replacing Eddie Jones, who now is in his second stint as coach of Japan.

The Wallabies started their season with consecutive wins over Wales.

On Saturday, Georgia, playing its first test match in Australia, took a 3-0 lead on a penalty goal in the second minute, but that lead lasted only three minutes before the Wallabies scored their first try by center Hunter Paisami.

In the second half, with Wallabies winger Filipo Daugunu off for a red card, Davit Niniashvili took advantage of a perfect bounce and the fullback regained his own grubber that ricocheted off Tom Wright for a try to make the score to 26-17.

Five minutes later, Georgia closed to within two points — 26-24 — when Aka Tabutsandze kicked from his own line and re-gathered the ball to go 110 metes for the try.

But that was as close as the visitors got.

The Wallabies came right back with a try to take a 33-24 lead and with Georgia playing a man short when Niniashvili was sent off for a foul. The Wallabies had a try called back for obstruction but went ahead 40-24 on Fraser McReight’s second try of the afternoon to all but clinch the match.

“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,” Schmidt said. “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 . . . that they got back into the game and we were scrambling just a little bit.”

Allan Ala’alatoa led the Wallabies — the third captain in three weeks for Australia. Liam Wright suffered a shoulder injury in his first match as captain in the first test against Wales and was replaced by James Slipper last week. Slipper was rested for the Georgie match.

Alex Hodgman, a 31-year-old Reds prop who played four test matches for the All Blacks in 2020, came off the reserves bench with 20 minutes to go. He qualified for a switch on residency and family grounds and became the fourth player to represent both Australia and New Zealand, and the first in 50 years.

The Wallabies won the only two previous encounters against Georgia at Rugby World Cup tournaments, including a 35-15 win in Paris last year.

Before the Australia match, Georgia had wins over Six Nations regulars Wales and Italy in 2022 and was coming off an upset 25-23 win last weekend over Japan, a week after a 21-12 loss to Fiji.

Australia next plays top-ranked South Africa in its Rugby Championship opener on Aug. 10 at Brisbane.

___

AP rugby: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby