Australia's win comes with heavy injury toll

Australia may have to call a replacement into their squad after their 67-5 victory over an outgunned but still feisty USA at Wellington Regional Stadium.

Centre Rob Horne has a fractured cheekbone and his tournament could be over.

"We may have to (call up a replacement)," said Wallabies coach Robbie Deans. "We'll see what the medics say first before we make that sort of decision.

"We have an eight-day turnaround now and we'll wait to hear about the full extent of it before we make any decisions."

The Wallabies scored 11 tries to one in their Pool C match, with man-of-the-match Adam Ashley-Cooper bagging three in seven minutes on the right wing.

But the Wallabies finished with a long injury list, Horne's being the most serious.
Deans said Horne may have sustained the injury in the first tackle of the match, but remained on the field until seven minutes into the second half.

Tough character

Replacement centre Pat McCabe dislocated a shoulder that popped back in, number 8 Wycliff Palu and full back Kurtley Beale both came off with hamstring problems and outside centre Anthony Faingaa was knocked out in the final seconds of the match.

The injury toll forced Australia to use all of their replacements and they were reduced to 14 men for the final seconds after dual try scorer Faingaa was treated and carefully carried off after a midfield collision that delayed the end of the match for several minutes.

Wallabies captain Will Genia said Faingaa seemed to have recovered after the match.

"He's a tough character. He was in the sheds just then congratulating everyone," Genia said.

Scrum half Genia described the scoreline as "flattering", but said the pleasing thing was the way the Wallabies stuck to the way they wanted to play.

Deans was also encouraged. "They approached the game with a better mentality," he said.

"It wasn't perfect but there were elements in our game we made some progress on."

Deans praised the way Berrick Barnes slotted in at fly half when Quade Cooper moved to full back to replace Beale.

Pretty decent

Despite the 45-point second half blowout, USA coach Eddie O'Sullivan also found plenty of positives in the way his team performed.

"Holding on to the ball we looked pretty decent and we took Australia through a few collisions. Our lineouts were pretty much what we wanted them to be," he said.

"I thought we played good rugby at times. We gave up some long-range tries, which were a real killer."

As they did in 1999, the Eagles also scored the first try against Australia at RWC 2011 when number 8 JJ Gagiano broke from a back-pedalling scrum and left Wallaby flanker Rocky Elsom in his wake as he dived over in the corner.

"It hasn't really sunk in yet. The ball just came my way. I was not thinking about it, it just worked," Gagiano said.

His captain, Tim Usasz, who caused a few problems of his own for the Australians during the night, was impressed by Gagiano's effort.

"That was probably one of the best passages of play in a long time," Usasz said.