Michael Hooper insists things can only get better after shocking first half against All Blacks in Sydney
WALLABIES captain Michael Hooper believes his team can “flip 30 points” by executing their game plan in the second Bledisloe Cup game in Dunedin.
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WALLABIES captain Michael Hooper believes his team can “flip 30 points” from Sydney’s ugly scoreline by executing their game plan in the second Bledisloe Cup game in Dunedin.
For the second year running, Hooper’s team has travelled to New Zealand trying to figure out how to turn around a heavy trans-Tasman loss inside a week.
Last year the Wallabies followed a 42-8 defeat with a 29-9 loss in Wellington, but the new skipper indicated there was more optimism this year despite losing 54-34 at the weekend.
The Wallabies’ rallied to score 28 points in the second half and while some would argue it’s a trap to focus on the points scored column above the points conceded, Hooper said it was a sign of the potential of the team.
“We didn’t do what we wanted to do, so it’s not like we did everything we could and it wasn’t good enough,” Hooper said.
“If we’d gone out there and did what you wanted and they beat you anyway, then you’d go sheesh. But there is a different feeling between last year’s loss and this year’s loss.
“The feeling (at half-time) was we just weren’t doing anything we’d spoken about in the first half, so why not go back out there and try and make it different. We spoke about putting them under pressure and it started to work.
“Yes, people say they were so far in front and so on. But the reality is they’re the best team in the world and we scored 30-odd points. So that’s positive from us.”
Those familiar with the Waratahs season may be hearing alarm bells right now, given NSW repeatedly followed the same pattern. Give up a big first-half lead, win the second-half but still lose. And then bank on the potential seen in the second-half to eventually take the team around a corner in their season.
But the corner never came for the Waratahs and they finished with a paltry four wins all year.
“Yeah there were some similarities (with Waratahs games) and I did finish up the game thinking that way,” Hooper said.
“I guess the difference is we would look at a Tahs game and there was a different issue each week. Here we have only played one game.
“However, we did fall down last week against these guys and we can flip 30 points just by doing the things we said we were going to do, but didn’t carry out into the game.
“It may have helped having a warm-up game. Obviously there were mistakes — myself included — where they got two or three easy tries. So if we can nullify the issues that we can control, we will in much better shape.”
Somehow, New Zealand left Sydney downcast too, after dropping off in the last half-hour. That “failure” has been the main focus of all the Kiwi press this week, and given the response from the All Blacks, keep those alarm bells ringing.
“It would be foolish to not think they’re going to get better,” Hooper acknowledged.
“It was their first game against Test opposition. So they’ll be better.
“But we have a good opportunity to close that gap and the short turnaround is good for us.”