MICHAEL Hooper was not surprised by Australia’s dominance at the breakdown as the Wallabies delivered a fatal blow to England’s Rugby World Cup hopes.

He was part of a formidable back row performance heralded for inflicting a demoralising 33-13 thumping on Stuart Lancaster’s men to knock them out of the tournament with a game remaining in the pool stages.

The flanker said it came as no shock to him and added: “No, we prepared this week well.

“It was another opportunity for our back row to spend some more time together on the field and it developed nicely throughout the game.

“We adjusted well and didn't get penalised too much in that area.

“But we'll have to review it and see where we went wrong and where we didn't go that well.”

When asked what he thought of England’s back row, which has been outplayed in every game in the competition thus far, the 23-year-old said: “They've got benefits elsewhere that we don't have.

“You have to weigh up your pros and cons for having a smaller back row or a bigger back row.

“They opted to go for that for whatever reason and Michael Cheika has his reasons for going for what we have at the moment.

“For us it's developing nicely.”

The development will stifle on Saturday when the Wallabies take on Wales, with Hooper out suspended for a clear-out on England’s Mike Brown, and with Warren Gatland opting for both Justin Tipuric and Sam Warburton in the starting XV, Michael Cheika will have to come up with a different gameplan to the one that destroyed England.

Hooper was full of praise of his new coach, and said: “It's going to be nice to sit back after the World Cup and review it because right now we're just in the moment - it's a day-to-day things.

“I can talk about the scrum being straight up.

“The difference there tonight - I was so happy for the front rowers and the tight five to get that turnaround and I felt we had a good, dominant scrum for the majority of the game.

“They've set a benchmark there that we come to expect of them now.

“We always knew the English had a good scrum and we had their performance in the forefront of our minds from last year.

“So we knew it could change at any time.”

Argentine Mario Ledesma has come in to sure the scrum up for Australia, and Scott Sio, Sekope Kepu and skipper Stephen Moore will be up against a changed Welsh front row as Paul James and Samson Lee replace Gethin Jenkins and Tomas Francis.

The Waratah said: “It's back to the drawing board now because Wales have been great so far this tournament.

“Every game is a tough competition and we're treating every game as a final.”

Australia, unlike England, relaxed their policy of picking foreign-based players and Matt Giteau who plays his club rugby at Toulon was inspired against England.

Hooper added: “It's obviously a nice thing to have - he's playing in his third World Cup now and the bloke's got 98 caps, so it's great to have those guys on the field.

“But it's more important in training to get the most out of those guys so we can put performances like that in on a weekend.

“That's where it shows the most.”