NANTES, France (AP) — Injuries to Taulupe Faletau and Gareth Anscombe marred a flat performance by Wales that was still good enough to account for Georgia 41-19 at the Rugby World Cup on Saturday.
Wales needed only a point to win Pool C and secured it with a fourth try in the 67th minute that ended a Georgia comeback from 24-7 down to 24-19.
The bonus-point win gave Wales 19 points out of a possible 20 in pool play and secured a quarterfinal next Saturday in Marseille against Argentina or Japan, who meet on Sunday.
No. 8 Faletau and flyhalf Anscombe will worry Wales now, though. Faletau, who has started every match, walked off late clutching his wrist. Anscombe was due to start but tweaked his groin while kicking in the warmup and withdrew.
Sam Costelow replaced Anscombe and played well. But, pointedly, his backup Dan Biggar was the only reserve not used. Biggar was resting an injured pectoral muscle suffered against Australia two weeks ago, until pressed onto the bench after Anscombe was hurt.
Probably because of seven changes to the team after crushing Australia, and having a quarterfinal already sewn up before kickoff, Wales played without an edge. It went through the motions against a Georgia side that took half an hour to get its game clicking. By then, it was 17-0 down and chasing, and Wales simply waited for errors.
The errors came, and the biggest beneficiary was wing Louis Rees-Zammit, who scored three of Wales’ six tries.
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AP Rugby World Cup: https://apnews.com/hub/rugby
