Michael Cheika cancels Wallabies training session ahead of Rugby World Cup farewell
AFTER farewelling Wallabies fans at Martin Place ahead of their World Cup departure, coach Michael Cheika revealed why he still cancels training sessions.
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AFTER publicly farewelling the gathered masses of Wallabies fans at Martin Place ahead of their World Cup departure, coach Michael Cheika revealed he still cancels training sessions because his players aren’t performing to standard.
This week, Cheika cut short a practice session at Moore Park after errors began creeping in.
What the coach believes will turn his troops from a good team into a great one is “training well every single day — every single day — having no sessions off”.
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“That’s the difference, that consistency, being good every day,” Cheika said.
“The other day we didn’t train that well, I closed it down. We were finished, we didn’t keep going because we had maybe half a dozen good sessions in a row and then that one time where we don’t, you can’t gloss over it.
“You’ve got to be really good every day, so that when you’re under the pressure of that tournament football we’re going to find over there, we’ll be ready because we’ve been under pressure every day at training.”
With the Wallabies flying to the United States on Saturday as part of their final Test in Chicago on September 5 before the World Cup begins, Cheika declared there is no more time for substandard sessions.
“It’s maybe something we would have accepted in the last stage of training, but now it’s getting to the point where everything has to be excellent, all the decisions have to be right,” Cheika said.
“We have to practice those things on a day-to-day basis. To practice any other way would be a waste of time.”
And why does Cheika believe the Wallabies will win the World Cup in England?
“We believe in ourselves a lot more than maybe we did before,” he replied.
“We’ve still got a lot to improvement as a collective over this next little period, and we’re training in a certain way to make sure that we’ll be ready for the battles that are going to start from day one.
“We’ve got a real sense of belief there.
“I’m never going to make the big statements, just look at winning the first game, get ourselves into the tournament and roll on from there.”
Cheika also confirmed that prop Scott Sio would be the team’s third-choice hooker at the World Cup after naming just two specialists, Stephen Moore and Tatafu Polota-Nau, in the key position as part of his 31-man squad.
“We know that Scott Sio will be the back-up; he’s played hooker before, he’s got a good lineout throw and he’s a very strong scrummager in that position,” Cheika said.
“If we get something short term, then Sio’s got experience and he’s more than capable of covering that void.”
Sio has been receiving tutelage from Wallabies scrum coach and four-time World Cup hooker Mario Ledesma, and Moore has been impressed.
“He’s been doing a lot of practice at training, I told him not to get too good at it, but he’s been really good so far,” Moore said.
Originally published as Michael Cheika cancels Wallabies training session ahead of Rugby World Cup farewell
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