Wallabies begin World Cup bid with first win since Eddie Jones’ return
AUSTRLIA subdued Georgia at Stade de France to get their World Cup campaign underway, and claim the first win of coach Eddie Jones’ second stint on the job.
The Wallabies have lost all five of their Tests since the former England coach returned in January, but found form when they needed it with Jordan Petaia, Mark Nawaqanitawase, and Ben Donaldson crossing for tries.
Successfully negotiating their opener puts Australia in the early lead in a pool that also contains Wales and Fiji, who meet in Bordeaux today.
Georgia, with a November 2022 victory over Wales on their record, and the home fans’ support, thanks to a 12-strong clutch of French-based players in their squad, had talked-up the prospects of an upset.
However, Australia was too strong, structured and ruthless to get bogged down in a battle with the underdogs.
The strength and speed of Will Skelton, Angus Bell, Taniela Tupou, and Richie Arnold kept up a supply of front-foot ball, while the hard running of Samu Kerevi and, in particularly, Marika Koroibete made inroads out wide.
Some wobbly kicking from hand from fly-half Carter Gordon will give Jones food for thought, having already stripped his only specialist fly-half of duties off the tee, while scrum-half Tate McDermott’s apparent concussion – sustained in a collision with Beka Gorgadze’s knee – will be a concern.
Georgia will have a fortnight to review and reassess before taking on Portugal, while Australia faces Fiji, two places above them in the world rankings, next.
Australia drew some of the sting from the encounter inside two minutes, as Nawaqanitawase’s drilled 50:22 gave them field position, and Petaia twisted through the tackles of wing Akaki Tabutsadze and full-back Davit Niniashvili to score.
Koroibete’s storming kick-return run set up a second try soon after with Nawaqanitawase profiting from McDermott’s blind-side dart, and Petaia’s deft offload.
Georgia’s hopes of dominating the scrum to gain a toehold in the game came to nothing, as a super-sized Australia pack held firm, and even forced penalties of their own.
Donaldson, in contrast to Gordon’s 20% success rate in the Wallabies’ final warm-up Test against France, proved reliable off the tee, as Australia ticked along to 18-3 after 20 minutes.
Georgia stemmed the bleeding, and then came out fired up for the second half, with flanker Luka Ivanishvili loitering out wide to gather a long mis-pass, and slide into the corner.
At 21-8 down, the underdogs, belatedly and briefly, began to snarl. Their resistance came to an end just as their hopes were highest, however.
Niniashvili broke up-field to a roar from the crowd but, short of support, he flung a loose pass straight to Tupou, who flipped a pass over to Donaldson to hare up the other end, and land a killer sucker-punch.
Donaldson picked his way through an understaffed defence for a second, as the game ran out of steam with replacement Beka Gigashvili’s late barge over giving Georgia the final say, but little else, from the contest.
