Rugby news: Wallabies must make statement against Argentina in World Cup warm-up
Wallabies supporters might be the most loyal and patient in world rugby — but there’s one result they won’t cop in a World Cup year. JULIAN LINDEN reports.
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Of the four remaining warm-up matches the Wallabies are playing before this year’s World Cup, the one they can’t afford to stuff up is Saturday’s clash with Argentina.
No matter what happens in the other games, if the Wallabies can pull off a win against the Pumas, they can proceed to the World Cup with genuine belief they can at least make the semi-finals, thanks mainly to a favourable draw that sees them on the much easier side.
But if they lose to the struggling South Americans, you can bet things will get ugly very quickly, with the knives coming out for reappointed coach Eddie Jones and his underperforming players.
Now under the guidance of former Wallabies coach Michael Cheika, the Pumas are looming as Australia’s likely quarter-final opponent at the World Cup, starting in less than nine weeks.
That makes this weekend’s showdown at CommBank critically important, for both countries.
No-one wants to admit it but this is the harsh truth.
Once the best rugby team in the world, the Wallabies are no longer in the same league as the sport’s top sides: New Zealand, South Africa, France and Ireland.
Ranked seventh in the world, whenever they lose to the big boys – as they frequently do these days – they just trot out the same tired old excuses and no-one bats an eyelid.
But the Pumas are a different beast, because they are now the standard the Wallabies can measure themselves by.
No disrespect to Argentina because they have proven they are capable of beating anyone, but if the Australians can’t win matches on home soil, they will considered long shots for the World Cup in France.
Ranked eighth in the world, Argentina are facing as many problems as the Wallabies, arriving in Sydney off the back of a 29-point flogging at home to the All Blacks last weekend.
In years gone by, that would be enough to make the Wallabies unbackable favourites, but after copping a 31-point whipping from an understrength Springboks side last weekend, it now looks like a flip of the coin contest.
“That’s not one we’re real proud of,” Wallabies’ halfback Nic White said.
That could be the understatement of the season, but it’s still early days so hold that thought, and the Wallabies have got a treacherous road ahead of them with two more warm up matches against New Zealand and one against France still to come.
Jones is already facing calls to make changes to the team that was thrashed by South Africa but hasn’t given away any clues yet to his thinking, with the line-up to be announced Thursday.
Nor did White, who was heavily criticised for constantly kicking the ball away, reveal any state secrets.
He did say his kicking was part of the team’s strategy – which most fans thought was a complete flop – but not White, who said everything is a work so progress so not as bleak as they may seem.
“We certainly can‘t gloss over anything on the weekend. We went over with an opportunity to win the game and create a bit of history and we fell a long way short,” he said.
“But there was no sugar-coating. We were straight into it after the game in the areas that weren‘t up to scratch in.
“We need to find answers and we‘ve spent the last two days finding those solutions. There’s plenty of problems but we’re not about the problems, we’re about finding the solutions and finding them quickly because we’ve got five games before we get into it.
“There‘s a lot of boys hurting in this group at the moment. I would have loved the chance to probably play yesterday if they could, just to get rid of the demons.
”So, look, there‘s motivation regardless. We don’t want to be the side that has to lose to get up to find a win.”
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