July 18 (Reuters) - Australia lock Josh Canham scored a hat-trick of tries in a rampant 57-10 victory over Italy on Saturday for their first Nations Championship success and a fitting farewell to coach Joe Schmidt.
Australia ended a run of six successive defeats, including their first two matches in the new competition at home to Ireland and France over the last fortnight, with Tom Wright, Brandon Paenga-Amosa, Angus Bell, Len Ikitau, Billy Pollard and Ben Donaldson also scoring in a feast of nine tries.
Ryan Lonergan added five conversions and Donaldson one more while captain Michele Lamaro and Australia-born Monty Ioane scored tries for the Italians.
Australia raced to a convincing 38-5 halftime lead as they laid the platform for their first test win since beating Japan in Tokyo last October.
SCHMIDT BOWS OUT WITH KISS TO TAKE CHARGE
It was the last game in charge for coach Schmidt, who is retiring and departs the Wallabies with a record of 12 wins and 19 defeats, including losing last year’s British & Irish Lions series, and hands over to Les Kiss with 15 months before Australia hosts the 2027 Rugby World Cup.
The Wallabies went through multiple phases of attack in the opening three minutes before lock Canham crossed for their first try and they had two more scores before the 20-minute mark in a blitzing start to the contest as Wright and Paenga-Amosa also went over.
Canham’s second try came in the 27th minute after Lamaro had put Italy on the board and by half-time Bell and Ikitau had all but secured success.
The Wallabies were also ahead at halftime in their previous two games against the Irish and French, but any fears of a second half slip after Ioane powered over for Italy soon after the restart were dispelled minutes later as Canham completed his hat-trick.
“Because of how well the forward pack went tonight, I didn't have to do too much,” said Canham.
“We’ve put in a lot of hard work in the past three weeks. It's been frustrating to not get the results over the last couple of weeks, but it's good tonight with more of a full performance."
ITALY COACH BARRED FROM MATCH VENUE
Italy’s coach Gonzalo Quesada was barred from the match venue and from having any contact with the team after being banned for comments made following last week's 47-17 loss to New Zealand.
He was the first to fall foul of new sanctions for criticism of match officials, but an initial two-game ban was downgraded to a single match after an appeal.
There was also a rare red card for Italian replacement Marco Riccioni, who despite not being involved in the game got sent to the stands for rushing into a sideline scuffle between the two teams.
Italy have lost all three of their Nations Championship games with defeats to Japan and New Zealand in their earlier games this month.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Alison Williams)
