Sept 30 (Reuters) – Australia face a race against time to bring in fresh players for the final Rugby Championship match in Argentina next week after five Wallabies were forced off the pitch by injury in Saturday’s 31-8 defeat at the hands of South Africa.
Robbie Deans’s side were reduced to 14 men for the last eight minutes of the contest when, having used up all of their replacements, Wallabies hooker Tatafu Polota Nau came off the Loftus Versfeld pitch with a shoulder injury.
Centre Adam Ashley-Cooper was knocked out cold making a try-saving tackle on Zane Kirchner in Pretoria and will definitely miss the match against the Pumas in Rosario.
Number eight Radike Samo (shoulder), winger Digby Ioane (knee), fullback Berrick Barnes (chest) also came off, leaving an unorthodox Wallabies team featuring scrumhalf Nick Phipps playing on the wing.
“I have never seen anything like that in terms of carnage,” Deans told reporters.
“We were down to 13 men at one point and not being able to make that last replacement put us under the pump.
“It could have blow out even more. We were severely compromised in terms of the line-up, but they hung on.”
Under-fire Deans already had a long injury list and anticipated problems with getting back-ups to Argentina in time for next Saturday’s test.
“We are going to have to bring some players across from Australia which is going to be challenging because we’ve already delved so deep into our resources that there will be a couple of players who won’t yet have visas organised,” he added.
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