Player ratings: Wounded Oz take bronze

Australia won the consolation prize and take home the bronze medal after their 21-18 victory over Wales.

It was a fairly bloody affair with injuries and blood replacements from both sides after a long brutal tournament.

Losing Kurtley Beale and Quade Cooper early on hampered Australia’s attacking opportunities in the match, but they will be pleased that they managed to keep the pressure on and come away with a win.

The win ends Australia’s long hoodoo at Eden Park, where they last won in 1986.

We rate the Australian players:

15 Kurtley Beale:
Went off after nine minutes when his injured hamstring wasn’t strong enough for Test match rugby.

14 James O’Connor:
Had his kicking boots on but made a few uncharacteristic errors elsewhere on the field with a couple of handling errors creeping in. He did have some good breaks getting on the outside of Shane Williams.
7/10

13 Adam Ashley-Cooper:
Threw a great pass to O’Connor in space but couldn’t hold onto the ball to finish off the try as another opportunity went begging. Spent the majority of the game at fullback and carried the ball up from deep.
6/10

12 Berrick Barnes:
Timed his run perfectly to score the opening try and took control of the game after moving to flyhalf. He was creative throughout the match and off-loaded in the tackle adding some life to a scrappy game. He added a drop-goal to his tally for the match to seal a great performance.
8/10

11 Digby Ioane:
Was handed off by big George North early on and had very limited opportunities to attack.
6/10

10 Quade Cooper:
Delayed the pass well to put Barnes into gap for first try and was starting to look a little more confident before the ugly injury to his knee in the 21st minute.
6/10

9 Will Genia:
Struggled a little under pressure at the breakdown and wasn’t given time to make a big more on the match. Didn’t make any major mistakes, but wasn’t able to boss the flow of the game.
6/10

8 Ben McCalman:
A strong carrier at first receiver and was on hand to collect the offload form Saia Fainga’a to score the final try to make sure of the win.
7/10

7 David Pocock:
Had a quiet game by his standards and took a long time to find his feet in the match, but was able to cause some problems at the breakdown in the second half.
7/10

6 Scott Higginbotham:
With the injury to Sharpe at the start of the match he took a lot of line-out ball and was impressive in the set pieces. Made his tackles and produced a good workmanlike performance.
6/10

5 Nathan Sharpe:
Hurt his knee in the first line-out of the match, but soldiered on until just after half-time. Showed a lot of heart in his 100th Test.
8/10

4 James Horwill (captain):
Did some hard work in the rucks and mauls, but didn’t stand out at any stage and looked like he still had last weekend’s defeat on his mind.
5/10

3 Salesi Ma’afu:
Spent more time on his knees in the scrum than standing up and is quite simply not good enough at this level.
2/10

2 Tatafu Polota Nau:
An ugly tackle on Shane Williams without his arms in the first half and was the human cannonball flying recklessly into tackles. Looked like he wanted to make a point having fallen behind Stephen Moore in the pecking order in recent times, but needed to use his head more.
4/10

1 James Slipper:
Dropped Sharpe in first line-out and had an up and down time in the scrums, but did do some good things with ball in hand.
5/10

Replacements:

16 Saia Fainga’a (On for Tatafu Polota Nau 52nd min):
Carried the ball up and off-loaded to McCalman for the final to seal the win. Otherwise not much to write home about.
5/10

17 Ben Alexander (On for Salesi Ma’afu 60th min):
Was anonymous after coming on for Ma’afu.
4/10

18 Rob Simmons (On for Nathan Sharpe, 46th min):
Great tackle on Jamie Roberts to stop the Welsh momentum and made several good tackles. A very strong defensive game after coming on.
6/10

19 Radike Samo (On for James Horwill, 70th min):
Not enough time to be rated

20 Luke Burgess (On for Will Genia, 68th min):
Not enough time to be rated

21 Anthony Fainga’a (On for Quade Cooper, 21st min):
Had one good run after a break by O’Connor and made some tackles, but doesn’t offer enough creativity on attack.
5/10

22 Rob Horne (On for Kurtley Beale, 9th min):
Tackled his heart out and never allowed the Welsh ball carriers to get past him or drive him backwards.
6/10