Wales battled hard and lost no respect on the field, but caretaker coach Rob Howley admitted the Six Nations champions had failed on their Australian tour.

Saturday’s 20-19 loss at Allianz Stadium on Saturday completed a clean-sweep for the Wallabies and continued Wales’ 43-year drought in Australia.

The Red Dragons were desperately unlucky not to have won the second and third Tests, and if not for a couple of crucial moments, the series could have gone the other way.

Wales say they’ll take some confidence from their gallant defeats into their end-of-year Tests at home to Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and Samoa, but were bitterly disappointed to again head home empty-handed.

“The taps on the back, this Welsh team is better than that. I played in many Welsh teams and got so close yet so far, I think this Welsh team wants to win international games,” said Howley.

“We’ve been very, very close the last two weeks and the one thing you need to gain respect is to win in Australia and we’ve come up short.

“When those moments presented themselves to go into the lead we weren’t composed enough, and when you’re playing against Australia you don’t get away with those moments.

“We have to learn from that and that ability to bounce back week in week out … I think it was a fantastic learning curve.

“We’re a pretty honest bunch of coaches, it’s 3-0, it’s a whitewash and we’re not hiding away from that but there’s a lot of good ingredients in what’s happened over the last three weeks and they can be very proud of their efforts.”

Wales were agonisingly close to winning in front of 42,889 in Sydney.

Brilliant goal-kicker Leigh Halfpenny hit the post with a superb 50-metre attempt near the death, in what was his only miss of the tour.

Replacement five-eighth James Hook almost created something out of nothing in the final moments as well, but his kick ahead just beat him into touch.