Give Blood – Play Rugby

England send the Wallabies packing

By MARC HINTON in Marseille - RugbyHeaven | Saturday, 6 October 2007 

England, behind their raging bull forward pack, have turned the form book on its head and dumped the Wallabies out of the World Cup with a stunning 12-10 victory in the opening quarter-final at Stade Velodrome today.

And so the defending champions, against the odds and most people’s predictions, live to fight another day at this World Cup, through to next week’s first semifinal in Paris where they will await the winner of the All Blacks-France match.

It was a match that England managed to turn into the dogfight they knew they had to if they were to prevail, their big pack giving the out-of-sorts Wallabies a hiding at almost every phase of the game.

The Wallabies were pushed all over the paddock at scrum time, outplayed at the breakdown and only really showed any nous up front at the lineout where their work was as efficient as ever. It was a brave, bullying performance from the English eight, exactly what they knew they had to do to dump these confident Australians out of the tournament.

But for a pack who had talked all week about their aim of becoming “the best in the world” the Australian eight was so far off that mark it was laughable. The Wallabies could barely keep the scrum upright, so much pressure were they under, and in the end it was a telling aspect of the game. Their work at the breakdown was also lacklustre, time and again England able to turn over possession with their superior technique and commitment.

For all that, there was still not much in it, the 2003 champions relying on four penalties from Jonny Wilkinson to get them home. Australian skipper Stirling Mortlock had a late chance to snatch victory with a 50m penalty from wide out, but he was unable to make the miracle play.

The Australians had done extremely well to take a 10-6 lead into the sheds at halftime, Lote Tuqiri’s try after 33 minutes the difference in a frantic opening 40.

Even then it had been hard to shake the feeling that the Australians were just hanging in, and that Tuqiri’s score late in the half had been pretty much against the run of play.

Still it was a well-taken try, Chris Latham and Stirling Mortlock putting in the power runs, and good patience and ball-retention eventually seeing Berrick Barnes able to slip a pass to Tuqiri that sent him scrambling over, and through, the ineffective tackle of Josh Lewsey.

Remarkably, that was to be the end of the scoring for the Wallabies, their error-rate and lack of punch up front preventing them from mounting the sustained pressure they ahd to to find the holes in the English defensive line.

So two Wilkinson penalties in the second half, after 51 and 59 minutes respectively,w ere all that the 2003 champions needed to progress through to the semifinals.

It was a thoroughly deserved victory, too, for this limited but lethal England side. With Andy Sheridan leading a splendid front-row effort, and the likes of big Simon Shaw and Martin Corry full of endeavour up front the arm-wrestle was won conclusively by the English. Wilkinson ran the game well, and there were odd moments of inspiration out wide, but really this was a famous victory foundered on the iron will of the front eight.

England 12: Jonny Wilkinson 4 pens.

Australia 10: Lote Tuqiri try; Stirling Mortlock pen con. Ht: 6-10