Australia 68 - 22 Russia: Mitchell out with torn hamstring

Mitchell suffered a grade one strain in Saturday’s 68-22 victory over Russia and will be out for six weeks.

Waratahs winger Lachie Turner has been called up as his replacement, while Western Force flanker Matt Hodgson will fill the vacancy in the squad left by Wycliff Palu’s absence.

Palu departed New Zealand last week after also sustaining a hamstring injury, but the Wallabies delayed announcing a replacement in order to assess their growing injury problems.

Turner and Hodgson will join Australia’s squad in Wellington today.

Russia head coach Nikolay Nerush resigned after the match, saying he had always planned to stand down after the team’s debut appearance at the Rugby World Cup, where they lost all four matches.

Scorers: Australia – Tries: Barnes 2, Mitchell 2, McCalman, Pocock 2, Moore, Ashley-Cooper, Ma’afu. Cons: O’Connor 9. Russia: Tries: Ostroushko, Simplikevich, Rachkov. Cons: Rachkov 2. Drop Goal: Rachkov.

Australia: O’Connor; Samo, Ashley-Cooper, Barnes, Mitchell; Cooper, Burgess; Slipper, Moore, Kepu, Horwill, Sharpe, Higginbotham, Pocock, McCalman. Replacements: Phipps for Mitchell (52), S. Faingaa for Moore (40), Ma’afu for Kepu (30), Simmons for Horwill (40), Elsom for Pocock (40). Not used: Polota-Nau, Genia.

Russia: Artemyev; Simplikevich, Kuzin, Makovetskiy, Ostroushko; Kushnarev, Yanyushkin; Popov, Korshunov, Prishchepenko, Voytov, Byrnes, Fatakhov, Grachev, Gresev. Replacements: Babaev for Kuzin (59), Rachkov for Kushnarev (40), Shakirov for Yanyushkin (63), Botvinnikov for Popov (65), Travkin for Prishchepenko (61), Matveev for Fatakhov (72), Garbuzov for Grachev (50).

Referee: B Lawrence (NZ). Attendance: 17,000