Australia v Portugal: Rugby World Cup – live

Rugby Union needs a serious lift today.

Back in Australia, the AFL and NRL grand finals were sensational events.

Both codes are thriving. Union, it’s fair to say, is not.

Rob Kitson delves into the ‘Eddie Jones Show Trial” here:

Australia are still ranked in the top 10 according World Rugby’s metrics.

But only just. Lose today, an unlikely but not wholly inconceivable event, and they’ll slip out for the first time ever.

They’ve got nothing to lose and everything to win against the Wallabies. No one is expecting them to beat Eddie Jones’ shell-shocked rabble, but they can certainly land a few blows that will live long in the memory. If they can show a bit more patience with ball in hand and earn the right to send it wide to their hot-stepping backs, then they will bow out of the tournament with a lot of pride.

There are four changes to the side that drew with Georgia. David Costa at loose-head will make his World Cup debut and David Wallis, who was impressive off the bench last time out, stars in the back row.

Portugal: Nuno Sousa Guedes; Raffaele Storti, Pedro Bettencourt, Tomás Appleton (captain), Rodrigo Marta; Jerónimo Portela, Samuel Marques; David Costa, Mike Tadjer, Diogo Hasse Ferreira; José Madeira, Martim Belo; David Wallis, Nicolas Martins, Thibault de Freitas

Replacements: Francisco Fernandes, Duarte Diniz, Francisco Bruno, Steevy Cerqueira, Rafael Simões, João Belo, Joris Moura, Manuel Cardoso Pinto

You didn’t expect this to be simple, did you? Carter Gordan has been ruled out of the match which means Samu Kerevi, who was dropped from the match-day 23, moves to the bench. Ben Donaldson, who plays a lot of his rugby at 15 for his club, is now the only player with any experience at fly-half in the team.

Australia: Andrew Kellaway; Mark Nawaqanitawase, Izaia Perese, Lalakai Foketi, Marika Koroibete; Ben Donaldson, Tate McDermott; Angus Bell, David Porecki (captain), James Slipper; Nick Frost, Richard Arnold; Tom Hooper, Fraser McReight, Rob Valetini

Replacements: Matt Faessler, Blake Schoupp, Pone Fa’amausili, Robert Leota, Josh Kemeny, Issak Fines-Leleiwasa, Samu Kerevi, Suli Vunivalu.

It’s been a grim week for Australian rugby. Perhaps it’s never been worse. After the Wallabies’ historic loss to Fiji, and then a humiliating trouncing by Wales, they face an early exit from the World Cup as the sorry state of the code has been brutally exposed.

Today’s game against Portugal is a hiding to nothing. Not even a convincing win against one of the weakest teams in the competition will blow away the stink. If they lose we’ll all discover that rock bottom is actually a lot further down than was first thought.

Portugal will know that they have a chance at creating history. Their comeback draw against Georgia showed they have plenty of spirit and a bit of skill to match it. And as Georgia were a dominant force for much of their game against Fiji last night, and as Fiji beat Australia, we might do a bit of mental gymnastics and envision a remarkable upset.

My name is Dan and I’m looking forward to what is surely the final match of Australia’s 2023 World Cup campaign. Eddie Jones needs a statement win. But can his players deliver?

Let’s find out together.

Kick-off at 5:45pm local time in Saint-Etienne/4:45pm BST.

Teams and further updates to come.