EU Family permit visa query

[Tom22]

Hello,
My wife is Latvian and we got married last year outside the UK. While leaving in Latvia we decided to go to the UK to live and work so we applied for the EU Family permit visa which was denied. With that option closed we travelled back to Australia. Now she has the Australian temporary residency. We have been together for over 2 years and married for almost 7 months.
I’m concerned that we went the wrong way when applying for the EU family permit because a friend of mine from South America got married to a French guy and then they travelled to the UK, I believed as students, and then somehow she applied and got a 5year spouse visa. I thought you could not do that since the application had to be done from outside the UK and also to sponsor her wife he actually had to be leaving and working in the UK.
In my case, what is the best way to go about when applying for an EU family permit?
Thanks

[vinny]

we applied for the EU Family permit visa which was denied.

Why was it originally denied?

[Tom22]

They suspected a marriage of convenience. I don’t know why they came to that conclusion considering that here in Australia my wife got the temporary resident visa with ease and we didn't even have to go to an interview. I guess all depends on the immigration agent that's looking at the papers and different countries have different guidelines.
If we decide to reapply what would be the best way of doing it? or maybe there is no point since we have been denied once and that's going to weight heavily on the next application.

thanks

[vinny]

They suspected a marriage of convenience.

Further guidance on marriages or civil partnerships is available at Annex.