Rugby World Cup 2011: Day 3 recap
Three matches were played on the third day of Rugby World Cup 2011, where World Number 2 Wallabies, took on Italy in North Shore City in the first clash. The Australian side, that was featuring in its first battle of the tournament, produced splendid victory
of 32-6 in their very first outing.
Australia lined up a full strength team for this particular clash and in the end acquired the desired results. They scored four tries in the match and interestingly all those came in the second half. Earlier on, the competition was hanging in the balance
at the end of the first half with 6-6. Italy had done exceptionally well to restrict the opposition just to a couple of penalty goals despite the fact that Wallabies had got a threatening forward bunch in their side.
Ben Alexander opened the flood gate of tries for Australia right after the break and was later joined by winger Adam Ashley-Cooper, centre James O’Connor and Digby Ioane. O’Connor was the top scorer of the match for Wallabies with 11 individual points. Fly-half
Quade Cooper also kicked couple of penalty goals for the winning side.
On the other hand, Italy could not add anything to their previous score from the first half and ended the match with a poor total of 6-32. Mirco Bergamasco was the only scorer for Italy.
Ireland and United States Eagles went neck-to-neck in the next event of the day and the Irish side quite expectedly tamed their opponents in a comfortable way. Ireland led the challenge by 10-0 after the conclusion of the first half and further raised their
total to 22-10 with the final whistle.
Tommy Bowe hailed the victorious side with two well executed tries and played a vital role in his team’s maiden triumph in the global showpiece. Rory Best, Ronan O’Gara and Jonathan Sexton were also impressive with their attacking approach in the match.
Meanwhile, US Eagles proved to be unimpressive with their rusty game as they were able to score just three points in the whole match before the last minute try from Paul Emerick and then successful conversion by fly-half Nese Malifa.
The most interesting competition of the day was seen between defending champions Springboks and Wales. The Boks, who were leading the equation by 10-6 until the interval, had given away some easy opportunities to the Welsh side in the second part. However,
South Africa won the encounter by a narrow margin of 17-16 with the help of couple points from Frans Steyn. The player scored two tries and Morne Steyn elevated his team with pair of conversions and a penalty goal to seal a victory over the European dark horses.
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