HIGH OF THE
ENGLAND’S World Cup hopes were handed a massive boost after Michael Cheika admitted his backs will have to raise their game to beat Eddie Jones’ men in the knockouts.
Cheika’s Australia limped past Georgia in their final pool match, where they led the minnows by just 17-8 with six minutes to play before running out 27-8 winners.
But the Australia coach also threw down the gauntlet when he suggested that all the pressure is on
Jones after his compatriot claimed that England’s final group game being called off suited the Red Rose.
“I saw he was saying that that would be an advantage and the typhoon gods were smiling on him,” said Cheika.
“So I suppose they’d better win. They’ve had the best preparation, according to the coach, so they’d better go out there and win.
“If that’s the best possible preparation. We’ll see how we go. A few things we need to work on out the back, but we’ll get to that this week.”
Victory for Wales tomorrow over group whipping boys Uruguay will condemn Australia to second place in
Pool D and a trip to Oita to face England in the first quarter-final next Saturday morning.
But Cheika claimed he was not bothered about going into the game as the underdogs. He added: SCOTLAND are threatening legal action against World Rugby if they fail to reschedule tomorrow’s group decider against Japan.
The fixture could be wiped out by Typhoon Hagibis, and will not be pushed back if it falls foul “I don’t really care, to be honest, because the only relevance is Saturday.
“That’s pretty much about it. It doesn’t matter – all the different things, who’s had a week off, who’s had a week on, who’s been resting, who hasn’t.
“It’s going to come down to who’s ready on kick-off.”
Georgia made the Wallabies fight for their win and exposed some serious flaws on a day when Australia would have expected to score more than four tries.
Cheika (above) added: “I thought it was a good challenge. Our forwards stepped right up to it. We know how effective the Georgian scrum can be and I think that we handled it pretty well.
“We scored a maul try, probably could have done a bit better on a couple of those if we stayed more disciplined, our lineout worked, so a good hit-out for the forwards.” of the weather. Instead the cancelled fixture would be deemed a draw, meaning Japan would go through and Scotland would be eliminated – assuming Ireland beat Samoa in today’s Pool A game.
But Scotland have turned to lawyers to make their case for flexibility from the tournament organisers. “Rugby supporters across the world are absolutely astounded at this rigidity from World Rugby,” said SRU chief executive Mark Dodson (left).
“The common sense approach to this is to play the game 24 hours later.”