An Australian second-string XV brushed aside African minnows Namibia 142-0 in Adelaide on Saturday with a 22-try display that would have been stopped at half-time had it been a boxing match.
In the latest and worst in a succession of blowouts that have scarred the group stages of the competition, Australia scored the biggest winning margin to date in World Cup history and rewrote most of their own national records.
Australia wasted no time in going ahead in sunny conditions at the Adelaide Oval, with rugby league convert Lote Tuqiri powering his way up the right wing and back flipping a pass for full back Chris Latham to run in under the posts.
Mat Rogers, switched from full-back to the wing, converted to make it 7-0 after three minutes.
Six minutes later the writing was already on the wall as the Namibian players struggled to cope with the Australian charges.
Lock Justin Harrison was brought down inches short of the line but scrum-half and skipper for the day Chris Whittaker fed the ball out to number eight David Lyons, who easily went over for Rogers to convert into a 14-0 lead.
Namibia were constantly on the back foot and tries followed rapidly for Latham (9), centre Stirling Mortlock (12) and Tuqiri (16) and it was 33-0 after just 16 minutes.
The Australians, with a mainly second-string XV on the field, were lining up to score as tackle after tackle was brushed aside.
The home pack took over the scoring to win a penalty try with Namibia collapsing a scrum on their own line after 20 minutes to make it 40-0 and all that was left was the record books.
Tries followed from Latham (25, 39), Rogers (30), hooker Jeremy Paul (33) and Tuqiri (37) making it 69-0 at half-time with 11 tries on the board already.
It was more of the same in the second period in what had become an embarrassingly lopsided contest.
Stand-off youngster Matt Giteau jinked through to dot down under the posts for Rogers to convert for 76-0 two minutes into the half and Tuqiri grabbed his hat-trick of tries two minutes later after Mortlock had pounded through the middle taking three Namibian defenders with him.
Namibia were powerless to stem the flow of points, and the ton was soon up after more tries from centre Nathan Grey (47) and Giteau (50, 54).
The Australians rung the changes from the replacement’s bench, and it was one of them, centre Morgan Turinui, who ran in the 17th try after 59 minutes to make it 109-0.
Tries from centre Matt Burke (65), Turinui (72), Latham (74), Rogers (77) and John Roe (79) took the Wallabies past the biggest World Cup winning margin to date before French referee Joel Jutge blew to put the Namibians out of their misery. — Sapa-AFP