Wales’ captain Sam Warburton, right, shakes hands with Dan Biggar after the Rugby World Cup Pool A match between Australia and Wales.
Advertisement
Wales had done their homework on Australia and used rush defence together with flooded breakdowns to disrupt the Wallabies pattern of play.
“It was highly stressful, I won’t lie”, said one of the standouts of their epic defence Adam Ashley-Cooper, as he and the other Wallabies began two days of much-needed rest before preparing to face Scotland in the quarter-finals next Sunday.
“It showed that, to be consistent in this tournament, you’ve got to rely on your 30-man squad”.
Australia scored their eleventh straight victory over Wales despite being two men down at one stage and under a relentless red onslaught.
Throughout this critical period in the second half Wales were camped in the Aussie 22 and seemed certain to score from a stream of five metre line-outs and scrums as their bitterest of rivals tried to make to and mend without the services of scrum half Will Genia and lock Dean Mumm.
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 are likely to rue giving away a string of penalties in the second half.
“We threw absolutely everything at them”.
Cheika said Wallaby back-row star David Pocock had suffered a calf injury, but it was not considered too serious.
“I am still quite proud of the effort from our guys”.
“That was probably the difference (against Wales), the way the reserves lifted, and against a quality team like Wales and that’s what you want”.
Flyhalf Bernard Foley, who led Australia to a 33-13 win over England last week with 28 points, landed five penalty goals from six attempts to keep their noses ahead before a raucous, Welsh-dominated crowd of 80,863 at Twickenham.
Australia captain Stephen Moore insisted there was no great secret to the way his side kept Wales at bay. “The disappointment [against Japan], and they haven’t had a great 12 months as a side, but when it’s mattered and people have criticised them it shows the character they have got”.
Gatland’s side employed the choke tackle – a tactic regularly displayed by Ireland – to limit Australia’s attacking threat to good effect, particularly before the break.
“We got over their line three times and were held up”.
“From one to 23, everyone who came on the field delivered and we were able to put them under pressure when they had the ball but also when we had the ball”, he said.
“There were plenty of imperfections in our game, and we’ll need to improve before the quarterfinals”.
The next challenge is a quarter-final battle against Scotland at Twickenham on Sunday night (Monday morning AEDT).
Advertisement
George North, pushed into centre against Australia, is likely to return to his more familiar wing berth against the two-time world champion Springboks.
