Wales became the first team to reach the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals after recording a 40-6 victory over Australia at Parc OL on Sunday evening.

Flying half Gareth Anscombe, who came in early to replace the injured Dan Biggar, kicked 23 points in Lyon. The tries from scrum-half Gareth Davies, centre Nick Tompkins, and captain Jac Morgan kept Wales at the top of Pool C.

“We’ve played well in the last two games but there were a few things we could improve on and today the discipline was better and we were great,” said Morgan.

“I’m very proud of the boys, we’re prepared to go to the well for each other and everyone’s prepared so well.”

Eddie Jones is under more pressure after the Wallabies lost their seventh Test since he took over as head coach for the second time in January.

Since then, Australia has only won once, and that was against a team in Tier II.

But things had been going downhill for a long time before that. Australia has now lost 19 of their last 25 international Tests, including their first loss to Italy.

After last week’s shocking 22-15 loss to Fiji, the first time they had lost to the Pacific Islanders in 69 years, they knew they had to win or go home.

Now, Wales has beaten them by a bigger margin than when they beat them 28–3 in Cardiff in 1975.

Jones had changed his lineup. He took out the talented but inexperienced fly-half Carter Gordon because he had trouble kicking against Georgia and was weak in contact with Fiji’s hard tacklers.

But Ben Donaldson wasn’t an improvement against a pumped-up Wales team. Wales turned back the clock in their best game since Warren Gatland took over as coach in December.

Wales got off to a great start with a line-out move right off the training pitch. Morgan took Tompkins’ inside pass and hit a beautiful line to break through the defensive line and set up Davies for a try between the posts.

Australia almost scored right away, but Wales’ fierce defence kept them from doing so. Liam Williams and Louis Rees-Zammit worked together to stop Angus Bell, an aggressive prop, from scoring.

The Wallabies had to settle for a penalty in the end, which Donaldson stroked over.

Wales took a big hit 12 minutes into the game when Biggar, who had just kicked the conversion, had to leave the field because he hurt his shoulder while tackling Richie Arnold.

Anscombe was a good replacement, even though he missed his first kick between the posts.

Australia’s deficit was cut to one point by a second penalty kick from Donaldson, but they did not score again.

Australia brought down a rumbling maul, and Anscombe, who was born in New Zealand, scored his first three-pointer.

The Wallabies should have scored right away, but Donaldson kicked a penalty to the corner instead of taking an easy three points. Hooker David Porecki then threw the line-out, which let Wales get away.

Before the break, Anscombe added two more penalties.

Jones took out the veteran James Slipper and put in the big prop Pone Fa’amausili at halftime. However, the Wallabies gave away a penalty in the first scrum of the second half, which gave Anscombe even more of a lead.

Wales was now way ahead. Their pack crushed the Wallabies again, and then Anscombe threw a beautiful chip that Tompkins caught and ran under the posts to score.

Anscombe kicked the extra point, and Samu Kerevi’s high tackle let him kick another three points to make Wales’ lead 29-6.

Jones had had enough, so he pulled Donaldson off the pitch after 53 minutes. This put Gordon in the fire.

It didn’t help, though, because Gordon tried to kick a penalty kick to the corner late in the game, but he messed up and sent the ball out of play.

Australia couldn’t stop the flow, and their number of penalties kept going up, while Anscombe’s score also went up.

He finished off a great game by kicking a drop goal, and Morgan had the last word by scoring a try from a driving maul.