![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/r1535562_2_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&w=130&h=130&scale=crop&location=center.jpeg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nMiller’s quicksilver skills, both on the left wing and then when she popped up on the right in support to complete her hat-trick within the first 33 minutes, again demonstrated why she is such a potent weapon for the Wallaroos.<\/p>\n
And it was the reason why there were so many anxious looks on the Wallaroos’ bench when, late on, the 23-year-old hit the deck after suffering a head-to-head hit from Melina Grace Salale, who received a game-ending red card for her recklessness.<\/p>\n
Still groggy and with bloodied lip, the Wallaroos are desperate Miller gets a clean bill of health after going through all the head injury assessment protocols, because they know she’s key when they meet the United States next Saturday in York, a match they surely have to win to make it to the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n
Desiree Miller of Australia makes a break.\u00a0David Rogers\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
The initial news of Miller’s shape was promising enough.<\/p>\n
“She’s a little bit cut in and around her mouth, but she’s in good spirits and doing well,” said coach Jo Yapp.<\/p>\n
“As it stands, she’s going through the HIA process, but it’s looking positive for the moment.”<\/p>\n
The Samoans were always going to be a warm-up for the Wallaroos, just as the Americans were a warm-up for overwhelming tournament favourites England, who crushed them 69-7 on Friday.<\/p>\n
– England make statement to start record-breaking WRWC<\/a> But the way the Wallaroos subdued and dismantled Samoa, even when the hard-running Pacific island part-timers earned enough possession to force the Australian defenders to complete a remarkable 190 tackles, gave plenty of satisfaction to their English coach Yapp.<\/p>\n “For me, the confidence to move the ball pleased me most, and we were clinical in the first half, certainly more than we have been,” she said.<\/p>\n “Also to keep them at nil, because they were throwing a lot at us, particularly in the second half.<\/p>\n “We know that the USA match is a huge game in our pool and it’s always tight games between us, but I think we can actually take a lot of learnings from this match.<\/p>\n “Samoa kept coming at us physically, so it was good to see the girls step up. Still, there’s definitely areas of the game that we know we can tighten up on for next week.”<\/p>\n The Aussies slipped off 26 tackles, which they won’t be able to afford against a US side who, according to Aussie co-skipper Emily Chancellor, “played a pretty strong game” even when being pummelled by an English outfit who have now won 28 straight Test matches.<\/p>\n “I think as long as we execute what our game plan is, we’ll be in a good position,” Chancellor said.<\/p>\n “But the Americans had some heart out there, they had some ticker, and we need to be ready for a pretty physical game again.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Desiree Miller began with dazzle and ended in a daze, but Australia’s Wallaroos are hopeful their brilliant treble-scoring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-91525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
– Writers’ Q&A: England favourites? Players to watch?<\/a>
– Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025: Squad lists, fixtures, rankings<\/a><\/p>\n