The woes yesterday mounted for the beleaguered Wallabies with news that Matt Giteau would be out for the rest of the Rugby Championship series with a fractured ankle.
Scans confirmed Australia’s worst fears, with the France-based star ruled out and outside back Rob Horne facing a likely shoulder reconstruction.
Both players, along with a third back, Matt Toomua, were forced off during the first half of Australia’s 42-8 mauling by world champions the All Blacks in Sydney on Saturday.
Coach Michael Cheika faces a selection headache ahead of Australia’s return Test in Wellington on Saturday to keep alive the three-match Bledisloe Cup series against the rampant All Blacks.
Cheika will have to make do without the 103 Test-capped Giteau, who turns 34 next month and is likely to have played for the Wallabies for the last time.
Giteau lasted just 10 minutes before he hobbled out of the game to be replaced by Toomua, who in turn was forced off with a concussion.
Giteau made a big financial sacrifice to put his country before French side Toulon, where the midfield playmaker is among the highest-paid players in world rugby.
He made no secret that he returned home to Australia during the French Top 14 season to have “one last crack” at elusive Bledisloe Cup glory.
“Matt’s got a bit of a break in his leg at the top of his leg and a bit of a fracture in his ankle,” Cheika told reporters yesterday.
“He’s disappointed, but he’s also very realistic,” he said.
“He’s a pro. He knows that he’s still got to get himself right and get back to his club commitments for later in the season, so that’s what he’ll be doing,” he added.
Giteau, who came on the field on crutches after the match, has now featured in 10 unsuccessful Bledisloe Cup campaigns against New Zealand.
He twice played in losing World Cup finals, in Sydney in the 2003 decider and against the All Blacks last year at Twickenham.
Cheika said he was considering a few selection options for the second Test and did not discount the possibility of switching Israel Folau from fullback to center.
“We’ll have a look at that today around the possible options that we’ve got,” he said. “Obviously, Quade Cooper is here and we could go for two ball carriers as opposed to two playmakers like we did against England in June.”
Cheika was downcast after the Wallabies’ wretched performance against the All Blacks, who are primed to retain the trans-Tasman Bledisloe Cup they have held since 2003.
Asked if there were any positives to be taken from the wreckage, Cheika told reporters after Saturday’s game: “Not really. That would be a lie of me if I tried to find one.”
Cheika, who has now presided over five straight Wallabies defeats since October last year’s World Cup final loss to New Zealand, was caustic about his team’s feeble defense.
The Wallabies missed a total of 40 tackles, lost four line-outs on their own throw and conceded a tight head scrum as the All Blacks claimed their biggest winning margin in Australia.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier