Australia’s Jorgensen snatches crazy late win over England

Australia replacement Max Jorgensen scored a superb try with the clock in the red to give the visitors a dramatic 42-37 victory over England on Saturday in a frenetic 10-try match that saw the lead change hands four times in a breathtaking final 15 minutes.

England thought they had snatched it when Marcus Smith converted Maro Itoje’s 78th-minute score, only for the irrepressible Wallabies to dig deep and somehow grab the upset win.

It was only Australia’s second victory in 12 games against England and first in five at Twickenham since their 2015 World Cup pool win and, coming after a wretched Rugby Championship where they lost five of six games, a dream start to their grand slam tour.

“Three tries in the last five minutes to win it, lose it and win it, it was so up and down, but one thing that stayed up was the effort from our team,” said Australia coach Joe Schmidt.

For England it was a fourth successive defeat and although, unlike in the last three losses against New Zealand they did, as promised, keep playing in the final quarter, they also kept making errors that kept Australia in the game.

England missed a remarkable 35 tackles and conceded 19 turnovers, crucially failing to gather the final restart when the clock was in the red.

“Multiple times we put ourselves in a position to win but if you turn over that much ball and make the game so unstructured against a team with that much pace … we gave them far too many opportunities,” said coach Steve Borthwick.

England captain Jamie George added: “Leaking 42 points at home is unacceptable. I think the blueprint of how we wanted to play was in the first 20 minutes. We put Australia under a lot of pressure.

“Sometimes you think the job is done. We took our foot off the gas. Credit to Australia they were very good tonight but we cannot keep doing that, it will be a tough one to watch back.”

SUPERB TRY

In a topsy-turvy first half England opened with a superb try as Ollie Lawrence collected a probing Smith kick and six passes later Chandler Cunningham-South dived over.

Seven minutes later the flanker got his second, catching the Australia defence cold by charging over from a tap penalty after another sharp Smith break.

England lost flanker Tom Curry, knocked out by a knee to the head making a tackle, after 23 minutes and it seemed to unsettle them as Australia, playing with real ambition and adventure, took control, albeit helped by a blizzard of errors and missed tackles.

A sublime no-look one-handed pop pass by centre Joseph Suaalii, the 21-year-old rugby league convert playing his first senior game in union, sent fullback Tom Wright over before Tate McDermott, on as a blood replacement at scrumhalf, made an immediate impact with a great dart to feed ⁠Harry Wilson for a second.

Noah Lolesio then popped over a penalty to somehow put Australia 20-18 ahead at halftime and leave the Twickenham crowd collectively scratching their heads in bemusement.

Australia started the second half strongly and lock Jeremy Williams produced an acrobatic winger-style finish to touch down in the corner for their third try.

England had gone from 12 points ahead to 10 behind but closed the gap with a first international try for replacement wing Ollie Sleightholme after a deft Smith grubber.

They then edged ahead with Sleightholme’s second try after a driving run by the impressive Ollie Lawrence, with Smith converting to make it 30-28 with 10 minutes to go.

Instead of closing it out, however, a bungled pass on halfway was scooped up by Australia winger Andrew Kellaway who raced clear, with ⁠Ben Donaldson converting for a two-point lead.

England hit straight back though, Itoje reaching over to level and Smith nailed the conversion.

Australia, however, refused to lie down, forging forward with a series of scrums with the clock in the red then blasting clear as Len Ikitau offloaded brilliantly for replacement Jorgensen to race clear and gleefully dive over the line.

England now prepare to face world champions South Africa at Twickenham next Saturday, while Australia play Wales on Sunday.