Australia began the European leg of their rugby tour by easily beating Gloucester 36 / 5 before a packed Kingsholm Ground on Tuesday.

Victory wasn’t assured for the Wallaby reserves until the first of Drew Mitchell’s pair of converted tries made it 24-5 after 65 minutes.

Until then, a Gloucester side featuring only four players from last weekend’s Premiership outing gave a determined effort against the first Wallabies visitors in 28 years.

“Gloucester played with a lot of spirit and asked quite a bit of our guys, but we finished strongly,” Australia coach Robbie Deans said.

“Our guys wanted to make the most of it. A lot of them are only going to play twice on tour,” Deans added.

“When you are going from Test match to Test match, you don’t get the opportunity to give guys that development time on the field.”

Only centre Ryan Cross started for Australia from the side which lost to the All Blacks in Tokyo on Saturday, and he scored the first of the Wallabies’ five tries by catching Quade Cooper’s penalty crosskick in the 13th minute to make the score 10-0.

Sustained Gloucester pressure produced its own piece of magic, when a forward lineout drive set up flyhalf Carlos Spencer’s crosskick for wing Charlie Sharples, who sent fullback Freddie Burns over to a roar from the 16 500-strong crowd.

But Cross then split the defence to set up fellow midfielder Tyrone Smith’s converted try for Australia’s 17-5 half-time lead. Mitchell finished off with a pair, and Cooper’s late try gave him a personal haul of 20 points.

Few of Tuesday’s Wallabies are expected to make the Test side against England on Saturday at Twickenham.