Rugby World Cup: Australia Go Through To Quarter Finals Undefeated

England take on Uruguay in the final game of Pool A with nothing at stake except pride and the opportunity for a few fringe players to enhance their reputations.

Wales’ match against Australia was a try-less encounter, with Wallaby fly-half Bernard Foley kicking five penalties to two from Welsh No 10 Dan Biggar.

Suddenly, the Wallabies were down to 13 men and Wales embarked on a ferocious and sustained assault on the Australian line.

“Any team that can beat the All Blacks, which they did in the summer, and to win the Rugby Championship you are talking about an incredibly formidable force”.

“They went through the atmosphere and noise at the weekend at Twickenham which was intense, I thought they handled it really well”, Larkham said.

Cheika said: “We are still right in the middle of what is pretty much a war zone, our group”.

When Wales finally got fed up of seeing their head-down charges meet brick-wall resistance, their crashball midfield moves were similarly dealt with.

“We had to defend there with 13 for long periods and I’m real proud about how we stuck in for each other”, he said.

Samoa produced their best performance of the tournament and outscored Scotland by four tries to three and were 26-23 up at halftime but they will rue giving away a string of penalties in the second half. We were held up over the line three times.

“We just gave it everything and there was great character shown …”

“If we’re a bit off our game, the Welsh will take full advantage”.

“But there are plenty of imperfections to our game, and that’s something we must improve on before the quarter-finals”.

Wales are determined to snap their losing streak against Australia in their World Cup clash tonight, assistant coach Shaun Edwards said.

His side now face a rejuvenated South Africa, fresh from a 64-0 win over the United States, and a team which has sparked into life after the shock defeat to Japan. There was no muddled thinking or white-line fever on their side as they calmly opted to allow Foley to slot the kick over for a 15-6 lead which they held to make it 11 successive victories over the Welsh.

“To me it was just really fine margins”.

“Australia defended extremely well and they should get credit for that”.

“It was just one job at a time, focus on the scrum”.

Edwards hinted that Wales would feel more comfortable with a likely quarter-final against Scotland which, if they won, could lead to another Six Nations opponent in France or Ireland.

Australia and Wales are both undefeated and this will be the last match of the pools stage for both teams.

Having secured the less treacherous path to World Cup glory, Wallabies coach Michael Cheika continued to play down the benefits of finishing top of Pool A.

“It would be risky to think like that because all quarter-finals are one-off games and we will need to play well whoever we face”.