Australia easily kept Namibia at arms length throughout

However, he remained upbeat despite the rout and promised that his team of amateurs would learn their lessons.

It was one-way traffic with Namibia on the back foot from first to last, although they prevented the Wallabies from getting a new world record score.

That had looked odds on at half-time when the teams turned around with Australia 69-0 ahead, but the hosts fell just short of New Zealand's mark of 145.

The All Blacks beat Japan 145-17 in the 1995 World Cup and Waterston has taken heart from Japan's performance at this tournament.

Match report: Australia 142-0 Namibia

"Japan took a thumping and have come back to be quite respectable so we have to take the positives and forget the negatives," he said.

"We put a lot of youngsters out, they got a hiding but they got invaluable experience and how else are they going to learn to compete unless they compete against the best?"

"We just got a thorough lesson. It was men against boys."

Waterston was impressed by Australia.

"I've never seen backs run on to the ball at such full pace, it was an example of how rugby should be played," he said.

"And the speed of the clearing out was frightening.

"I thought the All Blacks were the most ruthless in world rugby. But they (Australia) were ruthless.

"If this was their second string side, there must be some nervous guys in the first team."

Namibia's next outing is against Romania on Thursday and they will have to do without the instrumental scrum-half Hakkies Husselman.

Husselman injured his shoulder against Australia and is unlikely to take any further part in the tournament.