
As Eddie Jones’s house of cards finally came crumbling down, it fittingly felt like death by a thousand paper cuts in Lyon rather than one swift blow that finished Australia off. It arguably made the pain even worse.
Jones and the Wallabies looked like helpless bystanders as Gareth Anscombe slotted penalty after penalty (and even a drop goal for good measure) and Wales calmly, methodically rode off into the distance. The final score was 40-6, a record Welsh winning margin of 34 points in this fixture, yet the victors didn’t even record a four-try bonus point as instead they broke Australian hearts piece by piece.