The AAP story published on The Roar on Sunday providing details of the Wallabies’ tough 47-10 victory over the USA Eagles ended with this note of genuine relief: “Importantly, the Wallabies appeared to get through without injury…”

Given what happened to Wales in their Test earlier in the day against Italy, this may be the best outcome of the match at Soldier Field in Chicago, a match the Wallabies were never going to lose.

The 53,000 crowd at the Millennium Stadium were stunned when the dynamic Wales halfback Rhys Webb (remember his stunning debut try against the Wallabies a couple of years ago?) and the point-scoring machine Leigh Halfpenny were both stretchered off the field.

Webb’s injury looked to be fatal for his chances of playing in the 2015 Rugby World Cup. His cry of pain, a scream in fact, could be heard coming through from referee George Clancy’s microphone.

Wales coach Warren Gatland is optimistic (as you would expect) about the chances of either player making it through to the World Cup, stating: “fingers crossed for the scan results on Monday. I am going to be optimistic until I hear otherwise.” Quite so. But Webb looks to be a goner.

With key players like Sam Warburton coming back from an injury, along with Jonathan Davis out already for the tournament, you have to wonder if Wales are somehow being jinxed before a Rugby World Cup maul has been rolled in anger.

The fact is that Wales are now in turmoil. A week ago they were looking good after a splendid defeat of Ireland. Now there are the injuries and a lacklustre 23-19 victory over Italy, a team that was thrashed a week earlier, 48-7, by Scotland.

Scotland, in turn, were defeated 19-16 by France over the weekend, with the French left-winger with the splendid Gallic name of Noa Nakaitaci crossing the try line late in the match to seal the victory for his team.

The point here is that the pool of death became slightly less shark-infested with these injuries to key members of the Wales starting XV.

At Chicago, the Wallabies not only survived uninjured, they played a very good second half, after an unimpressive first half. The scoreline told the story. It was 14-10 to the Wallabies at half-time. And the Test ended 47-10 to the Wallabies.

The beginning of the Test was noteworthy for the massive scrumming of the Wallabies. They used the old-fashioned Pumas’ method of the bajada in the scrums, with all eight forwards moving forward in small, quick steps as if they were trampling grapes.

Two tries were scored quickly by the Wallabies, with the Eagles down a man in the sin-bin unable to get any ball and giving away penalties.

But this onslaught withered away in the Chicago heat. Balls were dropped, mistakes were made on defence and attack. Then the Eagles got a turn-over inside their own half and through brilliant passing and running scored an outstanding try, their first against the Wallabies in the United States since 1912.

There were two aspects of the Wallabies’ play that were particularly unimpressive in the first half. Their kicking was poor and without thought. And the chasing was even worse. The first half dozen kicks were allowed to be caught by the Eagles defenders, with no Wallabies bearing down to put pressure on the catchers.

Joe Tomane is a serial culprit here. Moreover, he has the fateful tendency of either drifting too wide or coming in too soon (I know, I know, they are either/or mistakes) which often leads to his opposites scoring tries or setting up tries, as the Eagles did when he drifted too wide, and Takudzwa Ngwenya smashed through at the angle to set up a try.

The Wallabies have a surfeit of wingers in their squad. You wonder why so many were selected and only two hookers.

The risk of taking only the two hookers was highlighted when just before he was subbed, Tatafu Polota-Nau seemed to go down after one of his trademark low tackles with his head leading.

As a side-note, Scott Sio threw the ball into one lineout towards the end of the Test. The Wallabies lost the ball in the contest. I could not see whether Sio actually packed into any scrum as a hooker. A Roar reader might be able to clarify whether he did.

By throwing the ball in once, did Sio fulfil the World Rugby requirement that hookers must be “trained and experienced”? I wouldn’t think so.

It seems only a matter of time, in fact, before Polota-Nau is injured. When he came on, James Hanson was terrific. His lineout throwing was accurate, his bustling play around the field, too, was full of energy and purpose. Why oh why isn’t he in the squad?

I would make the point that the best way to look at the Wallabies’ play at Soldier Field and to explain their lacklustre first half is to compare it with the All Blacks Test against Samoa at Apia early this year.

The Tests were played before the main contests for both the All Blacks and Wallabies. Both teams carried players who were not going to be in their main squads. Their opponents were playing at home. The conditions were extremely humid, with the players having to wipe the ball to take the moisture of it. And both the All Blacks and Wallabies were conscious that injuries could put them out of the tournaments they were training to compete it.

The Wallabies did much better than the All Blacks in terms of tries scored. And their set pieces, too, the scrums, lineouts and driving mauls (attack and defence) looked to be better organised than those of the All Blacks against Samoa.

This was to be expected, of course, given that the Wallabies have played the Rugby Championship, the two Bledisloe Cups Tests and have had several weeks of intense training.

This intense training, in fact, may have explained why the Wallabies looked leg-weary so early in the Test. It is extremely hard to come out of intense training and then play a match. Presumably, the Wallabies will have another week or so of more hard training and then begin their taper so that they are brimming with energy for their first match of the Rugby World Cup against Fiji.

Before the Test, Michael Cheika told the rugby writers that he has a starting team in mind and a reserves bench with dedicated “finishers” for the Wallabies opener against Fiji.

The star players not selected to play in Chicago are obvious starters: captain Stephen Moore, vice-captains Adam Ashley-Cooper and Michael Hooper, and Israel Folau. David Pocock also did not start but whether he or Hooper is an “obvious starter” is a moot point.

My guess is that Cheika might be tempted to mix and match with Hooper and Pocock as starters, depending on the team the Wallabies are playing. Against England, for instance, you would perhaps start Pocock at No.7 and play a bigger No.8, perhaps Ben McCalman or Dean Mumm.

But I would start them at No.7 (Hooper) and No.8 (Pocock) against Fiji, and depending on how abrasive Pocock is at No.8, even consider this line-up against England.

The reason for this is that England does not have a fetcher in their pack, a potential weakness as they showed against Ireland at Twickenham. Moreover, they play different games. Hooper, with his winger’s speed, plays wider. Pocock with his strength over the ball and his massive tackling plays more like a Palu-type No.8 in the middle of the field.

Hooper and Pocock could wreck the same sort of havoc Pocock wrought singlehandedly against the Springboks in the 2007 Rugby World Cup against a massive, muscular but slow-plod England pack.

I reckon that Rob Simmons and Kane Douglas will be the second-rowers.

Bernard Foley had a great day with his boot. He seemed to be more deliberate in his set-up and approach to his kicking. David Kirk made the point recently, too, that successful teams have playmakers who are unobtrusive rather than flashy. Foley is that.

Nick Phipps will probably be the starting half. Will Genia was good when he came on and started challenging the Eagles defence close-in. He did kick the ball away rather aimlessly, though. His running game, particularly, poses questions against a tired or lazy defence.

My guess is a Matt Giteau-Tevita Kuridrani centre pairing, with Drew Mitchell with his big left-foot being one of the wings.

But what type of game will Cheika’s Wallabies play?

My guess is that it won’t be a lot different from the all-court game the Waratahs played in 2014 to win their first Super Rugby trophy.

Is this a recipe for winning the 2015 Rugby World Cup?

The Wallabies first of all need to get out of their pool of death. I would say that of the three major sides in that pool (England, Wales and Australia), the Wallabies emerged from the weekend much stronger and in a better shape than the other two sides.

So far, so good then for the Wallabies.

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The video promoting the history of USA Eagles has the title “The Sleeping Giant”. In the last decade, the USA Rugby has created a sevens side that has defeated the Australian sevens side, and a Test side that defeated Russia at the 2011 World Cup.

And going into the 2015 World Cup, the USA Eagles have victories this year over Canada (twice) and Japan.

Now we had the Test at Soldier Field against the Wallabies, with the USA Eagles being very competitive in the first half against the number two side in world rugby.

In the last decade, under the leadership of Kevin Robert, the worldwide CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, this improvement at the top level has been more than matched with tremendous growth at the grassroots and college level. Rugby is the fastest growing team sport in the USA.

Australian rugby can be proud of its efforts to promote the growth of rugby in the USA, too.

A Wallabies side toured the east coast of the USA and several provinces in Canada in 1912. The tour was a great success, on and off the field, with the Australians winning 11 of their 16 matches. “We were never in bed. That was the trouble. I never had such a time of my life,” Bob Adamson, a five-eighth from Sydney University, wrote home.

The sole Test was won by the Wallabies who scored 12 points in the last eight minutes, to win 12-8.

The winning try was scored by Dan Carroll, one of the heroes of the Wallabies’ 1908 Olympic gold medal-winning side. Carroll stayed behind to study at Stanford University. He was the player-coach of the USA side, made up of players from Californian universities, which won the gold medal for rugby at the 1920 Antwerp Olympics.

This was a side with pace to burn with Carroll, a noted speedster, on one wing and Morris Kirksey, a winger in the USA side who also won a bronze silver medal for finishing second in the 100m and a gold medal for anchoring the 4 x 100m relay team, on the other wing.

Carroll coached the 1924 USA side to win a second gold medal at the Paris Olympics. This was the last time rugby was played in the Olympic Games. The rugby tragic Baron de Coubertin retired from the presidency of the Olympic Movement in 1925. Without his enthusiastic support, rugby was booted out of the 1928 Olympics at Amsterdam.

Without the lure of Olympic glory for the players, rugby lost support in the USA. In the 1950s there was a frisson of interest when the 1958 Heisman Trophy winner, West Point graduate Pete Dawkins, won a scholarship to Oxford University and played in the traditional match at Twickenham against Cambridge University.

Dawkins, a sort of mirror image of what Jarryd Hayne was to become, brought the torpedo pass to rugby.

The Boyce twins, Stew and Jim, two stalwarts of the Sydney University club, brought this technique back to Australian rugby with their use of the torpedo pass technique for throwing the ball into the lineouts, as if they were quarterbacks. It was a technique they saw on their rugby tours to the USA in the 1960s.

NBC, one of the big three free-to-air organisations, has marked rugby’s growth in the USA by televising to a national audience the All Blacks game against the USA Eagles last year and this year’s match against the Wallabies.

Greg Martin, who admittedly is inclined to get a bit carried away from time to time, was so impressed with the USA Eagles’ performance that he made the heroic comment that the USA could make the finals of the 2015 World Cup.

Pool B, admittedly, is perhaps the weakest pool in the tournament: Scotland, South Africa, Samoa, Japan and the USA.

As Martin pointed out, the USA have defeated Japan this year. Samoa defeated the USA with a score line of 21-16, which suggests a close game. The Springboks will easily defeat the USA Eagles. But Scotland could struggle, Martin argues.

I would accept this scenario as a possibility if the USA had better set pieces than they showed against the Wallabies.

Right now, the USA Eagles could defeat Japan in its pool but should lose to Samoa and Scotland, and will certainly lose to South Africa.

But rugby’s Sleeping Giant should be a real force in eight years time. By then there will be local stars who have grown up with rugby from the time they were toddlers. And all those Kirkseys and Dawkins-type players, great athletes who can’t get a start in professional gridiron, will be able to play professional rugby in the USA or in Europe.

Rugby USA is already making noises about American hosting the 2023 World Cup. South Africa will probably get this tournament though.

But World Rugby needs to understand that the USA has more potential to be a leading rugby nation than Japan, where the 2019 Rugby World Cup will be played.

What better way of ensuring the emergence of a new rugby giant than by allocating a Rugby World Cup tournament to it, possibly in 2027.