Thanks to Ireland, Italy are now seemingly in direct competition with Australia for the second qualifying spot to the quarter-finals of the Rugby World cup.

For a start, it means that bonus points could now assume even more significance, with Italy's final pool game against the Irish likely to be the clincher.

Before that, Italy must win their next two games, starting today with Russia.

Italy have won all three previous encounters, most recently in Moscow in 2006.

But, it’s time for the Wallabies to re-gather from where they have left off and senior players now need to stand up to the challenge.

Wing, Drew Mitchell said that they have taken out a lot of positives from the match against Ireland.