Like pretty much all the other heavy hitters, the Wallabies were somewhat ring-rusty after a month's enforced lay-off for their opening Pool B win at Ravenhill last night and will require plenty of polishing during the week. Which was just as well for Romania, as Australia still won pulling away by nine tries to nil.
The Wallabies, their hands probably suffering from frost bite given the change in climate, made a surprising number of handling errors - 23 to Romania's 14 - and also lost three of their lineout throws.
Given a softish 12-0 lead after just eight minutes they laboured for much of the first-half, cranked it up after the break, lost their way a bit again and finally finished with a bit of a flourish for a somewhat flattering winning margin.
Romania, given little or nothing by the officials, were far more adventurous than many of the underdogs had been so far in the tournament. Aside from their accomplished scrum-half Petre Mitu, flanker Alin Petrache put in some big hits, Romeo Gontineac took the ball up well and full-back Mihai Vioreanu and right-winger Cristian Sauan were potent runners.
Their reshuffled scrum stood up well and their line-out variations were inventive. They looked a far more dangerous and varied side than the US and were unlucky not to score at least the one try they deserved and the crowd craved.
That also says much about the Australian bedrock defence; probably the best in the world. When they were good, in patches, they were very good; attacking in waves and at speed off quick recycles with everyone contributing. They also had John Eales come through a hard-working 80 minutes in his first test for 11 months, and he called most of the line-outs on himself.
Australia were able to use all their replacements. Joe Roff especially made a big impact and assuredly proved a point to Rod Macqueen, while Jeremy Paul looked a good deal more mobile than Phil Kearns. But the absent Stephen Larkham looks imperative to their cause.
After a minute's silence for the former Irish international and IRFU President Des McKibbin, the numerous, colourful and vocal Aussie contingent broke into their first rendition of Waltzing Matilda for the kick-off and the Wallabies were straight into their stride.
Paul Honiss gave what looked like an erroneous five-metre scrum to the Wallabies, from which a fairly routine 9-10-12 openside move and a nice angled run from Tim Horan gave him a try inside two minutes and a £10,000 cheque from Guinness for the charity of his choice. The deftest of blind-side passes by George Gregan put Toutai Kefu over.
This initial double whammy prompted the home crowd to adopt the underdogs, all the more so when uniformally judging that Kefu had cynically taken out Mitu after the scrum-half's break and chip ahead. Mitu duly landed the penalty.
From there on the Wallabies laboured, their only additional score coming via an imposing five metre scrum and Kefu's second touchdown. After a nice line-out variation, flanker Alin Petrache joining the line from scrum-half after two dummy switches, Lucien Vusec hit the bar with a drop goal.
To compound their woes, Mr Honiss then failed to see his linesman signalling a Romanian throw-in, and then even more bizarrely over-ruled him in penalising the Romanian backs for subsequently drifting offside. As the Romanians understandably questioned this decision, Horan quick-wittedly punted the penalty across field, Cristian Sauan making a hash of it for Jason Little to snaffle a fortuitous touchdown and a 24-3 interval lead.
Roff, brought on at the break, ghosted in behind his centres to score with his first touch from Rod Kafer's pass and then danced around a couple of forwards for another in the corner.
Paul too chipped in with one after good work by Owen Finegan and Eales; the utterly assured Burke scored the pick of the nine from long-range from the restart and after a couple more penalties by Mitu, the pace of the game told against the wilting Romanians as Kefu sauntered in for his hat-trick.
