Coach Eddie Jones plans to toast the Wallabies’ opening World Cup win with a glass of red before turning his attention to their crunch clash with Fiji.
The Australians ended a five-Test losing streak under Jones with a 35-15 victory over Georgia in their pool C clash in Paris and will now head to Saint-Etienne, in southeast France.
Jones is making a detour via Bordeaux to watch Fiji battle Wales in a key match given only two teams will advance from the pool into the quarter-finals.
The veteran coach said he wasn’t getting too deep into planning just yet for the island nation, who they face on Monday, September 18 (AEST).
“We’ll worry about Fiji next week- all we want to do is enjoy the win as they players have worked really hard,” Jones said.
“I’m going to Bordeaux to have a look at Fiji and have a nice glass of red wine as well, might deserve one.
“Will (Skelton) might have a nice beer and we will get on to Fiji on Tuesday.”
The Wallabies went through medicals on Sunday, with halfback Tate McDermott appearing to be the only casualty from the Georgia win.
Forced off after a head knock, McDermott is set to be stood down under concussion protocols, meaning he will miss the Fiji clash.
Wallabies assistant coach Dan Palmer said that veteran prop James Slipper and super-sized Pone Fa’amausili were both tracking to return from injury to be available for selection.
Overseeing the lineout, Palmer conceded that the set-piece fell away in the second half of the Georgian match when the Australians lost three of their own .
“The lineout of the back-end of the game was under a bit of pressure but one thing to notice there is that that was a pack with 44 caps between them so that was a really inexperienced pack so they’re going to be much better for that,” Palmer said.
“I’ve just got to do a better job of preparing them for those situations.
“In the first-half the set-piece was really solid.
“I think at the back-end of the game they stood up at scrum time and at line-out time, they will be better for that experience.”
Palmer said the Wallabies would tweak their game plan for the flamboyant Fijians, who shocked England in their World Cup warm-up.
“Georgia’s traditional strengths are their scrum and set-piece and we wanted to take them on in that area,” he said.
“Fiji’s obviously a different challenge.
“I’d expect that game to be a little bit more open but the fundamentals of our game around our set piece will remain the same and we’ll be looking to take it to them.
“The threat Fiji will put in front of us will be very different this week so as a coaching group will have to get together and come up with a plan for that.”
