{"id":947807,"date":"2026-10-31T17:04:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-31T17:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/947807\/"},"modified":"2026-10-31T17:04:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T17:04:15","slug":"rugby-league-world-cup-2026-reece-walsh-tom-dearden-tom-trbojevic-star-as-australia-thumps-cook-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/947807\/","title":{"rendered":"Rugby League World Cup 2026: Reece Walsh, Tom Dearden, Tom Trbojevic star as Australia thumps Cook Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOWNSVILLE: Reece Walsh<\/a> and Tom Dearden<\/a> ran amok as Australia<\/a> chalked up a 66-6 win over the Cook Islands in its final pool game of the World Cup<\/a> on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

But Kangaroos coach Kevin Walters<\/a> insisted in his post-match press conference that he still had not settled on his fullback and halfback for next Sunday night\u2019s semi-final at Allianz Stadium.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Reece Walsh carving up in Townsville.\u00a0NRL Imagery<\/p>\n

Having pinched the No.1 jumper off James Tedesco<\/a> for the Cook Islands clash, Walsh scored a try, set up five tries and churned out 174 run metres to give himself every chance of retaining it for the first knockout game.<\/p>\n

And Dearden, having been given the No.7 jersey at the expense of Sam Walker<\/a>, tallied two try assists and 128 run metres.<\/p>\n

For one of his try assists on his home turf, Dearden threw a 15-metre bullet to hit Kotoni Staggs<\/a> on the chest after scanning the defensive line and seeing the opportunity for a marginal overlap.<\/p>\n

Tom Trbojevic<\/a> and Jack Bostock both bagged hat-tricks and their field days were helped in no small part by the brilliance of Walsh and Dearden.<\/p>\n

Still, Walters kept his World Cup selection cards close to his chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll make a decision in the next couple of days,\u201d the coach said, before remarking that Tedesco was \u201cequally as good\u201d against Fiji last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we\u2019re just fortunate with the Australian team and some of the players we have in our group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI keep telling everyone but you seem to think that I\u2019m a bullshitter, that I\u2019m lying to you. But I haven\u2019t made any decisions around who\u2019s playing where.<\/p>\n

\u201cSelections are tough, but it\u2019s a good position to be in as a coach and to be part of this group as well.<\/p>\n

\u201c… I\u2019ll sit down with our leaders and the like and we\u2019ll come up with a team for this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

In spite of the destruction he inflicted on the Cook Islands at Queensland Country Bank Stadium, Walsh spent much of the night hobbling around and he had a bag of ice wrapped around his left ankle post-game.<\/p>\n

He copped a bang to the same ankle that required surgery mid-season.<\/p>\n

However, both Walters and Walsh brushed off any talk of an injury scare.<\/p>\n

While it remains to be seen if Walters will stick with Walsh and Dearden as his No.1 and No.7, the Broncos phenom said he felt he and the other playmakers gelled increasingly better as the night wore on.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Jack Bostock scored a hat-trick on Saturday night, as did Tom Trbojevic.\u00a0Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel early we were probably a little bit clunky, but I felt as the game went on we sort of found our rhythm,\u201d Walsh said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt that Tommy and \u2018Mun\u2019 (Munster) really took control, Harry (Grant) guided the forwards around, and the big boys in the middle really tried to take a step forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got so much strike in this team … If we just keep knuckling down and working hard, we can set ourselves up for a really good crack at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bostock crossed for Australia only two minutes into the game, and although the Cook Islands briefly enjoyed some time in the lead after hooker Rua Ngatikaura burrowed over from dummy-half, the Kangaroos proceeded to pile on 11 unanswered tries.<\/p>\n

There came a point in the second half where the possibility of Australia clocking up a bigger total in the rugby league than in the cricket was very much on, so wretchedly bad did the final day of the Cape Town decider go for Pat Cummins\u2019 team<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, the Kangaroos\u2019 total didn\u2019t trump the cricket team\u2019s \u2013 not that that will be of any solace to Cummins and co.<\/p>\n

As Trbojevic and Bostock claimed hat-tricks, firebrand forward Tino Fa\u2019asuamaleaui collected a double.<\/p>\n

Australian back-rower Cameron Murray<\/a> was ruled out on match morning and replaced on the bench by South Sydney teammate David Fifita<\/a>, but Walters said the Kangaroos workhorse was simply given a rest because of soreness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TOWNSVILLE: Reece Walsh and Tom Dearden ran amok as Australia chalked up a 66-6 win over the Cook…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":947808,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,761,762,158,85],"class_list":["post-947807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947807","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=947807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/947807\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/947808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=947807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=947807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=947807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}