Adam Ashley-Cooper says Australia have their mojo back

Australia wing Adam Ashley-Cooper forces his way past Leone Nakarawa, left, and Nemani Nadolo during their opening RWC 2015 victory over Fiji  

Bath: With 109 caps, Australia wing Adam Ashley-Cooper has been around the Wallabies long enough to have experienced many high and lows.

For several years up until 2014 it was all lows as Australia’s international reputation in rugby took a bit of a battering, which had dire consequences for the game domestically, and resulted in other football codes moving head of rugby in the domestic pecking order.

There is Australian rules, which has the biggest spectator attendance numbers in Australia, rugby league, which has the highest number of TV viewers, and the increasing popularity of football since the inception of the A-League and the Socceroos’ regular appearances at the World Cup after 32 years in the wilderness.

Ashley-Cooper, whose career has spanned three Rugby World Cups, admitted yesterday as he recovered from Australia’s first Rugby World Cup 2015 match – a 28-13 Pool A win over Fiji at Millennium Stadium on Sunday – that Australian rugby had been down and feeling low for some years.

“I think rugby’s standing did fall back a bit in Australia. There is a lot competition of codes in Australia –I mean, we have many successful codes going on back home –but with rugby, maybe because we haven’t been performing to our potential at international level, it has dropped off a little,” he said.

“That could have been caused by a number of things. Obviously the team wasn’t performing well, changes in the coaching staff, injuries, performance issues as well.”

Ashley-Cooper said the Australia team recognised that something had to change to revive rugby’s fortunes at home and he believed their efforts were seeing results.

“We have done a lot of work on our own identity –individually and our Team Wallaby identity – and each day at training or each week that we are playing a test, we don’t go out there to win or to lose, it’s not about the result, it’s about playing to our identity and if we do that, the results take care of themselves.

“That identity is about playing with no fear, never taking a backward step, having a physical edge, being relentless in defence and all this set of values that we believe embodies the Wallaby jersey and the Australian player.

“That has caught the eye of the Australian audience and the supporter and we’ve earned the respect again, which may have dropped off a bit.

“I’d like to think that the way we’ve been playing the past 12 months has been a bit of a catalyst. We want to inspire and entertain our fans and I’d like to think that’s what we are doing now.

“But what’s important is that we’ve picked ourselves up again and got ourselves going and are rebuilding. We are in a really good space now.”

Australia’s next Pool A match is against Uruguay on Sunday at Villa Park, Birmingham.

Ireland name oldest RWC team in their history

• Scrum-half Eoin Reddan, 34, the eldest as Jamie Heaslip, 31, leads out a side with 12 changes against Romania at Wembley on Sunday

London: Ireland will field their oldest starting XV in Rugby World Cup history when they play against Romania at Wembley on Sunday.

The average age of the XV is 29 years and 245 days, beating the previous recordof 29 years and 219 days set when they played Georgia in 2007.

The oldest Irish player, Eoin Reddan, will be 54 days short of his 35th birthday.

Ireland have made 12 changes to the starting XV for their second Pool D game, handing World Cup debuts to hooker Richardt Strauss, lock Devin Toner, back-row Jordi Murphy and centre Darren Cave. Tadhg Furlong will make his RWC debut if used off the bench.

The whole pack changes except for Jamie Heaslip, 31, who keeps his place at number eight and leads the side in Paul O’Connell’s absence. In the backs, only Keith Earls and Jared Payne remain from the 50-7 win against Canada.

Ireland’s fourth biggest winning margin in tests came against Romania, a 60-0 win on 11 November 1986.