Wallabies looking ahead to World Cup with renewed confidence despite heavy Bledisloe loss
Michael Cheika’s got the 31 men he wanted for the Rugby World Cup -now he just wants them to stop playing like Jekyll and Hyde if they are serious about getting their hands on the trophy.
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Michael Cheika was only half joking when he confessed that he never really knows what to expect from the Wallabies whenever they run on the field.
Making light of the team’s Jekyll and Hyde performances against New Zealand this month, Cheika said Australia’s inconsistency might turn out to be their greatest asset when the World Cup kicks off in Japan next month.
“I’d say we’ll be a little bit unpredictable, that’s been a bit of our theme this year,” he said.
“If we don’t know what we’re doing then no-one will know what we’re doing.”
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Cheika quickly made it clear he was only speaking in jest and that the Wallabies really do have a masterplan for winning the World Cup, though it’s not obvious exactly what that is.
Following up their record 47-26 thumping of the All Blacks in Perth a fortnight ago with an abysmal 36-0 loss in Auckland last week, everyone has been left scratching their heads about which team will turn up at the World Cup.
“It’s a punch that we had to cop but we’ll learn a lot from that,” the Wallabies’ captain Michael Hooper said at Friday’s World Cup squad announcement.
“That’s the important thing about a loss like that is to learn what happened in that game and what you can improve.
“It’s not all broken. That’s just something we have to cop and if we take leanings from that the pressure that we’re going to be in over the next couple of months that’ll do us justice there last Saturday.”
Cheika’s already consigned last week’s flogging to history.
With the World Cup beckoning, he figures there’s just no point moping about everything that went wrong, just as there’s nothing to be gained from the Wallabies beating their chests about everything that went right seven days earlier.
That’s left the entire 31-man squad on edge, and that’s just how Cheika wants it.
“I don’t really want to be comfortable,” he said.
“That’s our real build in the next three or four weeks, that little bit of extra edge in our game.
“When we’ve got momentum in games and it’s happening we take those points and we put them in our bank.
“And when the game goes against us we hold strong because we know we can back in it and score points quickly and get right back in the game.”
There were few surprises in the squad announcement. Three hookers were named and just two halfbacks, which meant there was no room for Nick Phipps or Joe Powell, nor the utility backs Tom Banks and Jack Maddocks.
Veteran hooker Tatafu Polota-Nau also missed out as did Pete Samu but the addition of teenage whiz kid Jordan Petaia and veteran warhorse David Pocock gives the squad that classic blend of youth and experience.
“These come around every four years so it’s a long time in a rugby player’s career so turn up, make the most of it, love every day and enjoy it because if you’re enjoying it usually it makes the rugby better too,” said Hooper, one of 12 squad members who played in the 2015 World Cup final.
“It hasn’t even been a week since we played our last game and it feels like we’ve come a long way since then and that’s just the way it is and if you live in the moment you’re doing the right thing in my opinion and a lot of these guys opinions too.”
Originally published as Wallabies looking ahead to World Cup with renewed confidence despite heavy Bledisloe loss
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