Embattled Wallabies' coach Robbie Deans still has the full support of the Australian Rugby Union following the team's "devastating" loss to Scotland, reports said here on Monday.

The Wallabies' 9-8 defeat to the low-ranked Scots at Murrayfield on Saturday was still reverberating Monday with the coaching position of Deans under increasing scrutiny.

Although Deans is widely judged to be one of the world's best coaches, the Kiwi has struggled, recording just 14 victories and a draw from 27 Tests since taking over the Wallabies last year, for a success rate of 51.9 percent.

Australian Rugby Union (ARU) chief executive John O'Neill, who travelled with the Wallabies before returning home last week, said that while the defeat to Scotland was "devastating," Deans was under no threat of losing his job.

"We have every confidence in Robbie Deans being the right coach for us," O'Neill told the Sydney Morning Herald.

But the ARU boss said that after the northern hemisphere tour, leading officials would meet with Deans to conduct a review of the season to work out what improvements had to be made ahead of the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.

"The results are clearly disappointing and not acceptable," O'Neill said.

"We have two more games to go on the tour and rest assured we will be reviewing every aspect of this tour.

"(ARU's high-performance manager) David Nucifora, myself, Robbie Deans and the ARU board will have a good, hard look at what is going wrong."

Australian rugby has taken the loss to Scotland extremely hard, with some critics saying it could be the worst Test loss since the team's 1973 defeat to Tonga in Brisbane.

Deans admitted it was the worst moment of his Wallabies' coaching career after his team became the first Australian side in 27 years and 17 encounters to lose to Scotland.

Commentators have been damning about the form of the Wallabies, who have won just two of their past 10 internationals and finished bottom in this year's Tri Nations behind South Africa and New Zealand.

"The Wallabies are not just the laughing stock of Australian sport," The Herald's Greg Growden wrote.

"They are also the laughing stock of the international rugby world after suffering their worst loss in decades. This defeat was not as bad as being beaten by Tonga in 1973, but it's not far off."

The Australian's Wayne Smith said the Wallabies are "becoming the anti-All Blacks of world rugby."

"Where the New Zealanders nearly always find a way to win, the Australians nearly always find a way to lose. Hats off to them. That's a rare and perverse skill," he said.

AFP

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