Australia advanced to the World Rugby Classic final last night, but were made to work for their 19-10 victory over a determined Classic Lions at the North Field.The Classic Wallabies, without injured rugby league legend Andrew Johns, enjoyed a blistering start to the game with Nick Reily setting up pacey winger Damon Murphy for a ninth minute try.Reily, who narrowly missed the conversion, was back in the thick of the action when he added Australia’s second try following a slick passing move before kicking the bonus point to make it 12-0.The Lions were struggling to cope with the pace of Australia’s back line but regained a foothold in the game just before the interval when Jon Petrie scored a try that Ben Breeze failed to convert.It was the Lions who came out the stronger in the second half with their powerful forwards adopting a battering ram approach that paid dividends when Richard Francis burst through the middle for a try.Dave Scully missed the conversion but at 12-10 the Lions smelled blood and with around 20 minutes remaining the pendulum seemed to have swung in their favour.However, they couldn’t conjure up the breakthrough they were looking for and in the final minute Anton La Vin put the game out of reach with a try converted by Reily.Damian Smith’s side will now meet South Africa, who defeated Argentina on Wednesday, in tomorrow night’s final.The Wallabies coach said he was thrilled with his team’s display considering they were missing a slew of players due to injury. “I think it was a great game and I think everyone enjoyed it,” said Smith. “Our strength is out wide and theirs was experience and tough old forwards who just bashed away.“It was a totally contrasted game and it will probably be the same against South Africa. To their credit, (the Lions) defence was fantastic and at the end we looked like the guys with no legs whereas they looked pretty good.“We were missing six guys who we’ve had to send home because of injuries — we had three Americans who played for us and they did a great job.”Smith said he hoped Johns would be recover from his dead leg in time for the final.Canada secured a spot in the Plate final earlier in the evening with a hard-fought 10-7 win over Italy.The Canucks opened the scoring through Hayden Gage, with John Graff kicking the points, but looked strangely out of sorts against an Italian side they were expected to comfortably beat.Italy levelled when Luis Ontano broke free to pull Italy level, with Matteo Mazzantini converting, although Canada grabbed a somewhat fortuitous victory when Graff held his nerve to kick a last minute penalty.Graff admitted Canada would have to step up their game against France in the Plate final.“We weren’t good tonight. The Italians were up for it and we weren’t,” he said. “We snuck through that one today. We will breathe a pretty big collective sigh of relief after that. I didn’t think we respected them enough. But we will learn from this game you have to when you’re playing at this level.“We feel we can (beat France), we’re a good side but we just didn’t show it today.”