A Berrick Barnes penalty five minutes from time gave Australia a 20-19 win for a clean sweep in the three-Test series against Six Nations champions Wales in Sydney yesterday.

Only 11 points separated the two teams over a fiercely-fought series between the second-ranked Wallabies and Wales, the top-rated northern hemisphere side at world number four.

The thrilling one-point win came just a week after Australia edged out Wales 25-23 with a penalty after the fulltime siren in Melbourne.

The Welsh have not won in Australia for 43 years, since their solitary 19-16 win in Sydney in 1969.

“Both sides are capable of winning but credit to our blokes, they got up, and showed a lot of composure at the end,” Wallabies’ coach Robbie Deans said.

“They showed good discipline because there was a lot happening off the ball and they didn’t react and when you consider how dysfunctional our set-piece was it was a very good effort to win the game.”

Wales were to rue two crucial moments with fullback Leigh Halfpenny’s only miss in 16 goal attempts throughout the series in the end costing his team victory, while James Hook had a late opportunity with a kick-chase only for the ball to elude him into touch.

“It’s 3-0, it’s a whitewash and there’s no hiding away from that, but there’s a lot of good ingredients of what’s happened over the last three weeks and they can be very proud of their efforts,” Wales coach Rob Howley said.

“It was disappointing in the last ten minutes today when we went into the lead and we didn’t take the opportunity to kick the ball out or put the foot on the ball and take the scrum.”

Other results
New Zealand vs Ireland 60-0; South Africa vs England 14-14; Samoa vs Scotland 16-17.