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The Wallaroos sent coach Jay Tregonning back to school as a winner with a gutsy and emotional 25-19 win over Wales on Friday.
Playing with 14 after Siokapesi Palu’s red card, Australia had to repel one last Wales raid on their line to hold on for victory and finish their WXV1 campaign on a high.
Tempers spilled over on the final whistle with pumped up players going at it before eventually calming down.
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“I’m just so proud of the girls,” player of the match and No.8 Kaitlan Leaney said.
“I honestly can’t believe it. We’ve worked so hard all week and coming off our game last week (upset win over France), I think we shocked the world and we knew we were going to back it up this week with a good performance. I just couldn’t be more proud.
“We fought, we were down to 13 players (at one stage) and we just never gave up.”
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Rugby Australia chief executive Phil Waugh watched the victory at Auckland’s Mt Smart Stadium as prop Eva Karpani, substitute Lori Cramer and winger Ivania Wong scored second half tries.
The Wallaroos are ranked fifth in the world and Wales are sixth.
France now play Canada and England take on New Zealand in a Saturday double header at the same venue.
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England (10 points) lead the inaugural competition ahead of Australia (10) on points differential and New Zealand (six) are third.
“We were just trying to check everyone’s cardiac health,” Wallaroos captain Michaela Leonard said after the nailbiter.
“So I hope everyone’s OK.”
Leonard also paid tribute to Tregonning, who is stepping down after 16 Tests at the helm.
“Jay’s been incredible for this group. He’s come in when we’re in a transition period, we had a lot of our older, more experienced girls retiring and obviously working towards a little bit more of a professional, full-time platform,” the lock said.
“And he’s done really well with a group of inexperienced, relatively young players to build our confidence, teach us how to be professional on and off the field and to keep us building.
“I think you can see that with our improvements over the last 12 months.”
Tregonning won’t have long to reflect and celebrate.
“I’m back at school teaching next week, so I’ll get back into that. I definitely want to keep involved in high performance rugby as well and I’ll see what opportunities come available,” he said.
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