The Sports Lowdown For All Your News and OpinionsAustralia have put themselves in a very good position to qualify for the knock-out rounds of the Rugby World Cup, with a convincing victory over Uruguay. The Wallabies won 65-3 to send them to the top of Pool A.
Nearly 40,000 spectators gathered at Villa Park in Birmingham to witness Australia cruise to the biggest victory of the tournament so far.
There was no real doubt over the outcome of this match but Australia getting the bonus point victory puts more pressure on England who must beat the Wallabies to stand a chance of qualification.
Australia scored a total of 11 tries but some inconsistent kicking from fly-half Quade Cooper saved Uruguay further embarrassment as he missed six of his conversion attempts.
Three players scored two tries each for Australia; flankers Sean McMahon and Ben McCalman and winger Drew Mitchell got the ball over the line on two occasions in the game.
Uruguay could not offer much of a response to Australia’s ascendancy and only got three points on the scoreboard through a Felipe Berchesi penalty.
The single try scorers were wingers Joseph Tomane and Henry Speight and lock Dean Mumm in the first half, ensuring the Wallabies went in at the break 31-3 ahead. Matt Toomua and Tevita Kuridrani also scored tries for themselves in the second period to add to the rout.
Alongside his poor conversion rate Cooper also received a yellow card; his third in two months which may have been punished against a better team. It was during Cooper’s time in the sin bin when Uruguay scored their only points of the game.
Despite these errors from Cooper he did make a number of contributions to Australia’s strong performance with five conversions and three try assists.
They now face England at Twickenham on Saturday in what will be their toughest game of the group stages so far; a match that is likely to determine which of the two teams progress in the tournament.
