Australia beat Wales 15-6 on Saturday after withstanding a late siege while down to 13 men to set up a Rugby World Cup quarter-final against Scotland, who beat Samoa in a thriller, and send Wales into a clash with South Africa.
Neither side crossed the line in the Pool A decider, but only because of dogged Australia resistance against Wales while scrumhalf Will Genia and lock Dean Mumm were in the sin bin.
Flyhalf Bernard Foley kicked five penalties to two from opposite number Dan Biggar, as the Wallabies avoided a southern hemisphere clash between two sides who have twice won the title.
Photo: AP
Scotland had earlier survived a scare when they were pushed all the way by Samoa, finally clinching second place in Pool B and a last-eight berth against the Springboks with a 36-33 win.
That result dashed the hopes of Japan, surprise conquerors of South Africa in their opening World Cup match, reaching a first ever quarter-final berth, which they would have been fighting for later yesterday against the US if Scotland had lost.
Recent results do not augur quite so badly for the two British sides in this weekend’s quarter-finals at Twickenham in London.
Scotland have beaten Australia in two of their last three meetings and Wales overcame South Africa the last time the teams met — albeit after a 16-game losing streak — but the southern hemisphere teams are on a roll.
Australia, as they showed in attack in their victory over England and in defense against Wales, are serious title contenders under coach Michael Cheika.
“It was a different type of game for us, so we had to show a different skin,” said Cheika, who has transformed Australia since taking charge a year ago.
“We threw everything at them, but you have to give Australia credit for keeping us out,” Wales captain Sam Warburton said.
South Africa have put their 34-32 loss to Japan, the biggest-ever World Cup upset, behind them with emphatic wins over Samoa, Scotland and the US.
Samoa produced their best performance of the tournament and outscored Scotland by four tries to three and were 26-23 up at halftime, but they are likely to rue giving away a string of penalties in the second half.
Scotland scrumhalf Greig Laidlaw scored a decisive late try and kicked an additional 21 points.
“We came across a Samoan team that we have not seen in this World Cup. They were impressive, and we had to change the way we played,” Scotland coach Vern Cotter said.
England closed their disappointing tournament as the first main hosts to go out at the pool stage with a 10-try, 60-3 win over Uruguay.
Uruguay were out of their depth, but showed that there has been some progress since they lost 111-13 in 2003 against an England team that won the title.
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