The extent of Israel Folau's Rugby World Cup injury revealed

McCaw played with a broken foot last RWC perhaps he just thought he could tough it out ? But McCaw didnt have to jump for the high ball or twist and turn to cover a ball kicked in behind him and so on .

pfffft Richie won a RWC with a broken foot maaaate

Yep, pretty much...

Sure KCOL! Trying to win against a fit adversary with injured key personnel is always a good plan I guess.. Especially when you had other fit personnel on deck! It was a poor choice of folau at FB given his serious ankle injury! The last AB try.. Folau not in sight.. Lumbering Pocock assumes the role of fullback chugging after a BB bullet... A sight to behold! Anyways water under the bridge and the ABs win .. which is always a good thing I guess!

Is that comment really necessary?

Peximus, there's a pile of 'what ifs' around that final. What if Giteau badge not gone high on Retallicks elbow? What if Barnes wasn't afraid of calling a forward pass? What if Kepu badge caught Kane instead of Kane falling alone and off the field. What if Nigel wasn't such a favourite ref of one nation in particular? What if Richie didn't head butt Poey's studs.? That game was full of em. What if we just accept the game that happened and go on from it. The Wallabies were in that game till near the end. What if they did their best? They did. They did really well under the circumstances. I'm grateful.

Given that the WBs lost the final?? A fit Beale at FB, cooper/foley at 10 and Giteau at 12 wudve been preferable given folaus obvious injury.. Plus eventually giteau as well! I guess it's history now but my goodness wouldn't that have been something?

The silver lining in this cloud has been Beale's form. He is on fire. Sure his ball security let him down in a couple of instances but under the high ball he was Ben Smith like... totally secure and totally up for it. One of those balls he recovered in the final where he caught it on his knees was awesome. Hope he keeps his confidence and grows it over the next season. It certainly is not before time having a breakout year.

Kurtley should have played 12 or on the wing.

Surely it must have been not too serious that they played him especially with the form kurtley beale was in . On a side note it certainly didn't affect his kicking for territory which seemed more accurate and natural than ever before

Cheika is to blame. He should have had the confidence to play Kurtley Beale - he was really firing. I believe these poor player management issues disqualify Cheika from winning coach of the tournament. Final placings for best coach IMO should have been 1. Eddie Jones 2. Steve Hansen 3. Michael Cheika

Folau has been front and centre of every piece of Wallaby advertising over the past two years... It is kind of embarrasing really... The ARU put their hopes on single players... I hope soon, we can put our hopes on the team. Would be better for Rugby in this country I think. You could see he was gun shy from game 1. I am not sure when his injury really occurred, but apart from metres run, which is a hard thing to translate to effective metres, he had a poor tournament. His attempts at catching high balls cast me back to Beale/O'Connor years at the back, jumping for everything, catching nothing. That might be harsh as he was injured, but the fact is he was playing, and probaby shouldn't have been, and it could have had terrible consequences for the team and Folau... as it is, he has to now have surgery. Only the medicos will know if that was necessary anyway, or if he worsened it by playing. Anyway, history, and I hope he has a speedy recovery and comes back as good as he can be.

Playing an obviously injured player in the RWC was not a great decision on Cheika's part. Surely Beale should have been fullback on both occassions...

Selfish to play in RWC final. Could have cost us the Cup.

Knew he wasn't right. Why did cheika play him? Have you seen Sio? Bloke looks like robocop.

It shows what a remarkable athlete he is, despite injury he still had an influence and was still effective at gaining meters for the team.

So returns on the eve of the start of the Super Rugby season? Probably won't quite be ready for the first round?

begs the question why they played him with such a bad injury. it was obvious he could not jump or step becoz the ankle was not right. same thing happened with the other israel - dagg. played with an injured leg and was a shadow of himself last super season.

@P2R2 go back to lawn bowls and give yourself an uppercut on the way out - gooseberry !

4 months on the sidelines....solid commitment to a facade, P2R2. Please retreat to your black and white box, the adults are talking.