Australia v Russia Live

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Australia will take on Russia on October 1 in the 34^th game of the Rugby World Cup 2011. The match will start off at 1530 hours local time and will be played at the Trafalgar Park in Nelson. The two teams have never played before, neither in the World Cup nor otherwise. And with it being the first ever World Cup for the Russians, it does look like the Aussies should run away with the game in a hurry.

The thing is that even if Australia beat the Russians in this game with a bonus point, the problem for them is that Ireland have one game to play. And so, if Ireland is able to beat Italy in that last game, the side should be able to top the group, with the Wallabies still being second.

The Wallabies will finally be a happy side, what with the injury issues being laid to rest for the time being. Only Wycliff Palu, who has gone back home with an injury will miss this one, and while there are others who are injured, they will be only be rested for this game given that the opponents should not test them too much.

These include the likes of Pat McCabe, Anthony Fainga'a and Rob Horne, who will miss out the match, to go with the injuries to the likes of Kurtley Beale and Dan Vickerman, both of whom have been rested.

Australia will miss Digby Ioane because of his thumb injury but have the services of David Pocock and Scott Higginbotham.

Russia will change things around from the game against Italy, which they fought well but still lost, as they get in their best side possible for this game against the Wallabies. Most of their top players are back after a break from the previous game.

Australia had begun the tournament with a win against Italy, but then went down to the Irish when they failed to score a try in the entire period of 80 minutes. This was followed by a win against USA 67-5, and will look for another huge victory over Russia. Russia will go in with three losses, including one to USA 6-13, to Italy 17-53, and Ireland 12-62.

TEAMS:

Australia: 1. James Slipper, 2. Stephen Moore, 3. Sekope Kepu, 4. James Horwill (capt), 5. Nathan Sharpe, 6. Scott Higginbotham, 7. David Pocock, 8. Ben McCalman, 9. Luke Burgess, 10. Quade Cooper, 11. Drew Mitchell, 12. Berrick Barnes, 13. Adam Ashley-Cooper, 14. Radike Samo, 15. James O’Connor.

Reserves: 16. Tatafu Polota-Nau, 17. Saia Fainga’a, 18. Salesi Ma’afu, 19. Rob Simmons, 20. Rocky Elsom, 21. Will Genia, 22. Nick Phipps.

Russia: 1. Sergey Popov, 2. Vladislav Korshunov (capt), 3. Ivan Prishchepenko, 4. Alexander Voytov, 5. Adam Byrnes, 6. Artem Fatakhov, 7. Vyacheslav Grachev, 8. Victor Gresev, 9. Alexander Yanyushkin, 10. Yury Kushnarev, 11. Vladimir Ostroushko, 12. Alexey Makovetskiy, 13. Andrey Kuzin, 14. Denis Simplikevich, 15. Vasily Artemyev.

Reserves: 16. Evgeny Matveev, 17. Vladimir Botvinnikov, 18. Alexey Travkin, 19. Andrey Garbuzov, 20. Alexander Shakirov, 21 Konstantin Rachkov, 22. Mikhail Babaev.