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Wallabies captain Stirling Mortlock believes Australia’s game has no need of a drastic change after last week’s thumping Tri-Nations rugby loss to New Zealand, and tips his team to be ‘back up’ for their two looming clashes with the Springboks in South Africa.
The Australians are currently in a rare rest period prior to reassembling next Wednesday in Sydney to prepare for their Tri-Nations clashes with South Africa in Durban on August 23 and Johannesburg seven days later.
The Springboks are scheduled to play the next four weekends against Argentina, New Zealand and then twice against Australia.
Mortlock was hoping that the daunting schedule might work in Australia’s favour.
“They would have played a bit of footy coming up with those two matches (against Argentina and New Zealand),” Mortlock said.
“They are world champions and they will have their backs up, they’ve gone quite well so far this year.
“It’s a good opportunity for us and one that I dare say we will be up for.”
Australia have lost their last eight matches in South Africa, but Mortlock was the hero the last time they triumphed in that country eight years ago.
His last minute penalty from the sideline secured Australia’s first Tri-Nations title.
The bustling centre acknowledged Australia needed to improve on a number of areas from last weekend’s game, but described the heavy loss as “a unique situation”.
“With the All Blacks it seemed that everything they did turned into points and they profited from it, whereas whenever we tried to be positive it didn’t quite come off and then they profited again from the turnover or the ensuing phase.
“There was some glaringly obvious things that we can improve, the breakdown, some of our set piece and probably our kicking accuracy.
“They are the things we work on all the time, so drastic changes don’t need to be made so that we can turn around.”
Mortlock today posed aboard a Harley Davidson as part of a promotion to boost awareness of prostate cancer.
He is one of several high profile sporting personalities involved in the campaign, including Sydney Roosters rugby league stars Craig Wing and Willie Mason, Sydney Swans AFL stars Jude Bolton, Peter Everitt and Amon Buchanan and Olympians Ky Hurst (swimming), David Barlow (basketball) and Nikki Hudson (hockey).
The sports stars will all be pictured on – or around – a Harley Davidson with the photographs auctioned to raise money for the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia.
“Awareness of male health in general, anything to do with that is a good thing because too often men tend to just bottle everything up and don’t come out and investigate and make sure that everything is going as well as it should be,” Mortlock said.
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Ando said | August 8th 2008 @ 7:42am | Report comment
Just a little note, Craig Wing is not a Sydney Roosters star, carn the Bunnies
Blinky Bill - Bellingen said | August 8th 2008 @ 8:25am | Report comment
No need for panic? Well that’s true……..mostly. But one area I would like to see addressed is for the Wallaby Captain to have more impact.
On ‘that game’ in NZ recently, I would have liked to have seen SM say or do something to get our forwards to change gears & take on the AB’s. Let’s be honest, there were absolutely no surprises waiting for us. We knew they would be fast furious & throw everything at us, and they did. We failed to match their intensity and got smashed.
Sorry to say this but some of that blame must lay with SM. As Skipper his job was to rally the troops & he didn’t do enough. I still maintain that the game was there for the taking. It was our best chance is ages to have a win in NZ and we blew it. IF we could have held them for those 20 minutes or so, then the AB’s may well have started to self destruct. As it was they grew in confidence as the game went on.
So what could he have done out there in the backs? How about develop a repoir with the ref as Richie was? The AB Captain was acting like Lawrence’s long lost nephew, and good on him. SM needed to be in there occassionally to balance the ledger, ensuring the ref was aware of the Wallabies concerns over certain rulings.
I recently read that it’s best if the Captain is either a forward or no further from the forwards than half back. For me that was a light globe moment. Of course! How better to influence the most important aspect of the game – the forwards – than by being one of them? Hopefully Robbie will have plans down the track to address this.
On the Springbok playing 4 matches in a row – Can you imagine the confidence that the Boks will gain if they beat us ? If we can’t manage a win with this advantage (a totally knacked Bok team), then it really is time to reassess how we prepare & play for away games.
Spiro Zavos said | August 8th 2008 @ 8:44am | Report comment
Robbie Deans is good at getting teams to come back from losses. Remember this year the Crusaders lost to the Highlanders at home and then went on to win everything after that for the Super 14 title. But there is this curious inability of Wallaby sides to win overseas. The record is something like, I think, four wins out of the last 26 all over the world, aside from the RWC. This is the real test for the Wallabies and Deans.
Jerry said | August 8th 2008 @ 8:53am | Report comment
It’s not that curious that Australia have a poor away record – other than the All Blacks most teams struggle playing away. SA have an away record no better than Australia (Dunedin notwithstanding), and the 6N teams almost never win in the SH. The home/away gap is not as pronounced in the 6N but then the travel factor is considerably smaller.
Peter K said | August 8th 2008 @ 12:39pm | Report comment
I agree that the best captains are forwards. Eales, Fitzpatrick, Woods, Johnson etc.
The captain also needs to be a player who is certain of his spot.
When Mortlock was first appointed out of the forwards only Vickerman has been certain of his spot, and the ARU would not appoint a south african as the captain.
Horwill should be a long term certainty. I would look at grooming him for captaincy , before the RWC. Mortlock’s aging body may or may not make the next RWC.
Jameswm said | August 8th 2008 @ 12:54pm | Report comment
I don’t know how they keep their mouth shut when there are such dodgy rulings. I do think Mortlock is too nice with the refs, not that I’m suggesting he emulate GG.
ohtani's jacket said | August 8th 2008 @ 1:01pm | Report comment
Tana Umaga was the best captain the All Blacks have had since Fitzpatrick.
It depends on how good you are at captaining not position.
Harry said | August 8th 2008 @ 1:17pm | Report comment
No need to panic, but the Wallabies need to change their mentality and be absolutely desperate and bloody-minded if they are to change this dismal record away from home.
“It’s a good opportunity for us and one that I dare say we will be up for.” I’m sorry, but that is lame. I realise these days everyone is desperate not to give mtoivation to the Oppo by saying something beforehand – and lets face it, the media will find some talking head in the leadup anyway to provide the requisite “motivation’, but they need to lose that mentality of being satisfied by just winning the home games only. As Spiro points out, Deans’ approach is key here and fortunately he has a good track record.
Blinky Bill - Bellingen said | August 8th 2008 @ 2:19pm | Report comment
OJ – You may well be right about Umunga for the All Blacks. However, I’m only looking at the Wallaby problems and they are pretty clearly in the forwards.
ohtani's jacket said | August 8th 2008 @ 2:43pm | Report comment
Bill,
Only two weeks ago people were saying there was leadership all over the park, now after one loss there’s no leadership whatsoever?
Clearly the Wallabies would love to have that John Eales type leader, but the choices in the forwards are limited. It’s either Sharpe or Smith, but both are guaranteed subs every game.
Having a captain in the forwards isn’t the be all, NZ’ers can attest to that in the form of Whetton, Randell, Blackadder and Thorne. Sean Fitzpatrick was one of the great All Black captains, but look at the pack when his team really hit their stride — Dowd/Fitzpatrick/Brown/I. Jones/R. Brooke/M. Jones/Kronfeld/Z. Brooke, in essence a pack full of leaders.
As far as I can see, Mortlock is your only choice and he needs to be proactive.