Australia v England: Fears for Test surface

There is disquiet over the nature of the ground surface that will be used for the second Test against England on June 18.

The AAMI Park surface is cut up during a Super Rugby match last month.

Further disquiet over the unstable nature of the Melbourne pitch that will be used for the second Test against Eddie Jones’s England on June 18 formed the backdrop as the Wallabies moved on to a war footing in Caloundra yesterday.

Despite months of attention by the ground staff trying to stabilise the surface at AAMI Park, players in the Melbourne Rebels-Western Force Super Rugby match there on Sunday afternoon reported that the pitch again was giving way under the scrums.

“It may not have looked too bad but it didn’t feel great,” one of the players said. “The ground was slipping under our feet.”

Asked whether the surface could be repaired in time, the player replied: “Only time will tell. Hopefully they rectify that and the teams can just concentrate on playing football.”

The Australian Rugby Union has been maintaining dialogue with the Melbourne and Olympic Parks Trust in recent months over the state of the surface.

“They feel there has been improvement but they acknowledge there are still some issues,” said an ARU spokesman yesterday. But it is now too late to move the Test. It will go ahead at AAMI Park irrespective of whether the problem is rectified or not.

The Australian rugby community has been amusing itself wondering when Jones would open his psychological warfare campaign against the ARU, his former employers and the ones who sacked him in 2005. But it might be that in the AAMI Park surface he will have an entirely legitimate grievance to complain about.

As Wallabies coach in 2004, Jones theatrically paced out the width of Murrayfield when he realised the Scots had deliberately narrowed the ground to prevent Australia from attempting to outflank them, so it would come as no surprise if he presented himself with a bucket-and-spade to test out the Melbourne surface.

The danger of an unstable surface was hammered home in the 2008 Wallabies-Barbarians match at Wembley where the manicured grass rolled up like a cheap carpet under the first scrum, causing Matt Dunning to snap his achilles tendon — an injury that ended his Test career — while his front-row partner Sekope Kepu missed a year of international football because of a torn pectoral muscle.

Bordeaux-based prop Kepu did not go into the Caloundra camp yesterday as he and Glasgow Warriors winger Taqele Naiyarovoro were delayed in Europe, but it’s likely he too will share concerns about the AAMI Park surface. Even as the Wallabies assembled in Caloundra late on Sunday night, Jones’s England were sending them a pre-series warning as a half-strength Test side put their World Cup tormentors Wales to the sword 27-13 at Twickenham. Wales, much closer to full strength, went ahead 10-0 but then were swamped by a England side that scored five tries.

Had goalkicker George Ford had an even half-decent match, it could have turned into a rout. Instead, he was roundly booed by the Twickenham crowd for landing only one goal from seven attempts.

The victory gave Jones six wins from six as England’s post-World Cup coach and Australian captain Stephen Moore warned the team he will bring to Australia clearly had its confidence back.

“I think you’ve seen that already, the effect that he’s had,” said Moore. “They’ve obviously won the Grand Slam, the Six Nations and they obviously had a good win last night. They’ve got that winning culture back under Eddie and he’s already said he wants his team to become the best in the world, so they’re going to be looking to come over here and play really well. We know they’re a different beast to the one we encountered in the World Cup.”

Former Australian and Queensland captain James Horwill, who has had a storming season for Harlequins to earn a Test recall from Michael Cheika, admitted England had come a long way since the Wallabies sealed their exit from the World Cup with a 33-13 win in the pool round.

“They got smashed from pillar to post in the press for their early World Cup exit,” said Horwill, who played in the Rugby Championships but unluckily was left out of the Wallabies World Cup squad. “They’ve had another good win against Wales and that’s without most of their Saracens and Exeter guys, so they were probably missing eight or so guys from their starting XV. That’s a big positive for them as a country and a team.”

Horwill admitted he was surprised by his call-up and speculated that the Wallabies coach might be using him as he used Dean Mumm during the World Cup year, to provide inside information on the English players.

“I guess I understand the mentality of the English a bit more than some of the guys,” he said. “There’s six guys from Harlequins in the England squad and some guys in critical positions, so you get to play with them and get a better understanding of what they’re trying to do.”