Australia vs Uruguay - Little Learned

With 27 amateur players and four lower tier professionals making up Uruguay’s World Cup squad, their game against Australia was never going to be a tight contest, but full marks to the South Americans for courageous effort. Their goal of scoring a try against the Wallabies was not realised but they earned respect for their brave endeavour to play to full potential.

The Wallabies scored 11 tries to win 65-3 but so outclassed were the opposition that there was little to enlighten coach Michael Cheika. There was keenness to attack with ball in hand and plenty of skilful attacking sorties, plus tight defence, but against porous defence and the opponents’ limited attacking ability, not all that much is to be gleaned from the game.

A few observations stand out though:

Quade Cooper succeeding with only five out of 11 goal-kicks was a disappointment. Also, his yellow card (swinging arm and then flipping the opponent backwards over his leg) may have been a red card with a stricter referee. After Bernard Foley’s mediocre performance against Fiji, this was a good opportunity for Cooper to stake a claim for the 10 jersey, but he would have gained no ground on Foley with this performance.

Likewise, Nick Phipps can have made little progress in his quest to be favoured ahead of Will Genia as starting scrumhalf.

Sean McMahon was magnificent at openside flank. He is most effective at blindside though, and Scott Fardy’s Test 6 jersey is under threat – or should be if Cheika keeps an open mind and is not wedded to Fardy as starting Test blindside.

Drew Mitchell is clearly grabbing his unexpected second chance at a Test career with great enthusiasm. Rob Horne as a first-choice left wing selection is no foregone conclusion.

Dean Mumm was a force at lock and good when he moved to flank too, but he was perhaps too pugnacious on occasion in his first game as Wallaby captain when composure would have served him and his team better.