Gregan injury mars Wallabies romp

A thigh injury to captain George Gregan was the unwelcome side-effect for Australia after an otherwise cathartic evening’s work in which they thrashed Romania 90-8 in Brisbane.

Gregan did not emerge after half-time and could only watch as his team-mates ran in eight second-half tries, including one for his replacement, Matt Giteau.

Coach Eddie Jones said after the match that Gregan would not don the number nine jersey in the Wallabies’ next match against Namibia, allowing the veteran scrum-half to focus on recovering in time for the crucial encounter with Ireland on November 1.

“George has got a cork (bruise) in his leg, not too serious, but probably serious enough to keep him out of next week,” Jones revealed.

“He’ll be treated pretty heavily during the upcoming week.”

Jones confirmed that Chris Whittaker would “most definitely” take over the role in Gregan’s absence.

But Jones was also quick to praise the performance of the versatile Giteau, who stepped in to the scrum-half role.

“Gits did well at nine, he’s a very talented young player and he’s now played at Test level at nine, 10, 12 and seven so he’s got a fair repertoire.”

The versatility of the Australian team, epitomised by Giteau, was also demonstrated by winger Lote Tuqiri. The former rugby league international appeared as an emergency substitute for openside flanker Phil Waugh, who left the field because of a back spasm 16 minutes before full-time.

“We said to Lote just on the scrum and the rest of the time just play like a running back,” said Jones. Tuqiri obliged and even got himself on the scoresheet.

“Lote’s claiming that pushover try, and he did particularly well,” said Jones, who was impressed with the contribution of all the replacement players.

“The bench did really well because what they did was finish the game off for us, albeit in some unusual positions.”

The match equalled Australia’s best victory margin in a Test and also the record number of tries (13), while Elton Flatley’s try after 18 seconds was the fastest ever recorded in the World Cup, but Jones brushed away talk of such records.

“We weren’t interested in cricket scores, we weren’t interested in records. I couldn’t tell you how many tries we scored,” he said.

“You maximise what you can get out of the game.”

And he was not completely satisfied with the win, especially some of the handling mistakes: “We’re certainly satisfied with what we’ve done but we’ve got space for improvement.”

The best aspects of the game for the Australians was the ruthlessness in the second half and a steady improvement in the fluency of the backline.

But poor handling still dogged many movements and the Romanians exposed some slack work in the forwards in the first half.

In particular, Romania’s try midway through the first half was a shock as they claimed the ball on an Australian throw then were able to bludgeon their way to the line, Petrisor Toderasc claiming the try.

But once the eastern Europeans faded after the break the Australians were unstoppable, with Mat Rogers wrapping up his hat-trick and only Wendell Sailor missing out on a try among the Australian backs who finished the match.

Romania picked up some injury problems of their own, with full-back Dan Dumbrava picking up a shoulder injury and flanker Marius Niculai suffering from a hamstring strain.

Coach Bernard Charreyre was philosophical after the heavy defeat, which he said cast a poor light on the tournament.

“We are a bit low tonight but this is not the real quality of the Romanian team,” he said.

“As from tonight we are going to concentrate on our next match and next time we are going to play as players, not as spectators.”

And having faced both Australia and Ireland so far in the World Cup he had no doubts over which side would win when the two sides meet.

“There is no comparison between them. They will defeat Ireland if they play the way they played tonight.”