Our enthusiasm key to beating the new All Blacks

 
David Pocock Roar Rookie

By , 18 Sep 2009 David Pocock is a Roar Rookie

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New Wallabies signings James O'Connor, Quade Cooper, coach Robbie Deans, David Pocock and Sekope Kepu at ARU headquaters, Sydney. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

New Wallabies signings James O'Connor, Quade Cooper, coach Robbie Deans, David Pocock and Sekope Kepu at ARU headquaters, Sydney. (AAP Image/Dean Lewins)

We’re in Wellington and all our preparation is all done. We trained Monday and Tuesday in Sydney, then flew over on Wednesday, and have trained over here the last few days.

We have our captain’s run this morning, and then all that’s left to do is stretch and prepare ourselves mentally for what will definitely be a very tough game.

The All Blacks have made a few changes – which seems to have caused a stir in the media over here – and I think they will be a much improved side to the one that went down to the Boks on the weekend.

In the forwards, Donnelly is a line-out specialist and will be pumped about making his debut, and Adam Thomson brings a massive workrate and is very accurate at the breakdown, which we will definitely have to watch out for.

In the backs, I’m no expert but Nonu is pretty direct and usually provides pretty good go-forward in attack and the Force boys know what Corey Jane can do after he scored in injury time to sink us at Subiaco Stadium earlier in the year in the Super 14.

The fact that the game is technically a ‘dead rubber’ (with the Tri-Nations and Bledisloe Cups no longer up for grabs) is irrelevant. It’s a massive game for both teams and you can feel the excitement amongst our camp about the opportunity we have on Saturday night.

There’s no denying that we have had a disappointing Tri-Nations, where we have been pretty close a few times but have failed to get home. But this is an opportunity to keep building on last week and take another step in the right direction before we head to Tokyo to face the Kiwis again and then on to the Spring Tour.

The win in Brisbane was very special and enjoyable, especially for it being my first start in the Tri-Nations (alongside Will ‘Sanchez’ Genia, who I’ve played against and alongside since Under 15s), but more importantly as a team I think we are definitely moving forward and are starting to play the way Robbie and the coaching staff have been coaching us to play all year.

It was a special moment when Coopy (Adam Ashley-Cooper) scored off that set move from a scrum and then ran up to the fence and embraced a few members of the crowd – from which he actually got off with quite lightly. He didn’t cop too much flak about it from the team during the week.

The Suncorp crowd was fantastic and they definitely lifted us in the second half when things were still very close. We were a bit disappointed we had to wait for the presentations to take place before we could thank them, as a lot of people had left by then.

It is amazing to play in front of a crowd like that and something I won’t forget in a hurry.

We stepped up against the Boks in Brisbane, but that’s only one win and we are definitely hungry for more. So the challenge now is to add the things we’ve worked on over the last two weeks, and then bring that same enthusiasm that we brought against the Springboks into Saturday nights’ game.

We are under no illusions as to how brutal the contest will be, particularly at the breakdown. The All Blacks have a very proud history and know how to win, so they’ll be as keen as us to get a win.

It should be fun!

David Pocock is a current Wallaby and columnist for The Roar. The ex-Zimbabwean plays for the Western Force in the Super 14 competition. He is the founder of the charity Eightytwenty Vision.

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