The Wallabies continued to play the game deep inside England’s 22 and went ahead when Foley kicked a seventh-minute penalty for offside awarded by French referee Romain Poite. He described Wales handler Warren Gatland as a “master coach“.
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The mobility of the Wallabies, epitomised by the outstanding David Pocock at number eight, always gave them an edge and while England had hoped their traditional dominance at the scrum would give them a foothold, they were bullied, battered and beaten in a remarkable turnaround in Australian set-piece technique.
“There are a few fantastic young players in that England team.
The atmosphere was outrageously loud, that’s not an easy thing to deal with”, Wallabies coach Michael Cheika said.
Australia and Wales will now play off for the top spot in the group.
“You can’t put it to the side, you just have to walk towards it, accept it”, he said. We have got a big Test match against Wales coming up, and then a quarter-final after that.
The management’s decision to fast-track Sam Burgess into the World Cup squad and matchday 23 when all evidence suggested he was not ready was also divisive. “We will be asking for more of that going forward”.
“The key to playing England at Twickenham is starting really well and not allowing the crowd to get into it”.
“We knew there’d be a lot of pain – we’re in England’s backyard”. It’s tough, we started to build a little bit of momentum.
The first scrum came in the second minute, and Australia conceded a free kick for pushing too early.
The wisely-timed intervention of former Australia coach Bob Dwyer certainly seemed to work its magic as French referee Roman Poite routinely warned England prop Joe Marler about not scrummaging straight, just as Dwyer had highlighted in the media in the build-up.
“Mario has taught me that the scrum is a very important part of the game”.
“We all get the significance of this defeat, but in the last three and a half years there have been a lot of things that have been positive”.
Henry said England had moved so far from their traditional strengths in trying to mimic New Zealand’s free-flowing style that the Wallabies overwhelmed their once-renowned scrum.
The double try-scorer said it had been one of the best ever team performances.
“Well done to Australia on the win today, but from my point of view I’m absolutely gutted to be going out of the World Cup and more so our own World Cup obviously”. We know there will be criticism which we will take on the chin.
Foley was laudatory about back counterparts Michael Hooper and Scott Fardy as they pillaged the ball and harried the English throughout the match.
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Lancaster was quick to reject allegations there are divisions within his coaching staff, particularly over the apparent inability to choose decisively between Owen Farrell and George Ford at fly-half, as well as the use of recent rugby league convert Sam Burgess.
