Australia has been beaten 57-54 by the USA in the semi final of the World Wheelchair Rugby Challenge, being held alongside the World Cup in London this week.

After defeating Japan, England and France in their pool matches, the Australians left their worst performance for their most important match against the three time Paralympic gold meddalists.

“It was probably our worst performance in quite some time to be honest, we were very undisciplined but it’s a work in progress I guess,” Australian coach Brad Dubberley told Rugby News.

“I’m not disappointed that we lost, I’m disappointed by how we played. It was undisciplined and uncharacteristic and the US played really well, but maybe it was the loss we needed to have ahead of Rio.”

Australia now faces Japan in the 3rd/4th playoff overnight, after they went down to Canada in the other semi final.

“We’ve played them a fair bit over the last few years so we’ll be confident but we’ll definitely need to play better then we did against the US or it’ll be a similar result,” Dubberly said.

Channelling Wallabies coach Michael Cheika, Dubberley said that whilst the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro was the ultimate goal, his side looked to compete at every opportunity.

“As far as I’m concerned, we want to win every match that we play and win every title that we can. Sure we have one eye on Rio but for us we are looking to build a whole program, not just one team or one line up.”

“We want the sport as whole to grow in Australia and the more success we have, the easier that will be.”

Although the Australians have already qualified for next year’s Paralympics, the side will compete at the Oceania qualification tournament in Japan next month, with Dubberley eager to blood some of the squads younger players on the international stage.

“We’ve got a squad of 15 at the moment that will be culled to 12 for Rio, but within that there is a good mix of youth and experience. We’ve got young guys coming through not just for Rio, but also for Tokyo in four years time so the development is going well at a national level.”

“We had Matt Lewis come in against the US and cause a few turnovers towards the end there. Before we got to this tournament, I probably never would have considered putting him into a big game, but he showed his value tonight so that’s one positive to take from the match.”

Australia faces Japan in London at 5:15pm tonight (local time) with tickets for the match still available online.