Wallabies coach Robbie Deans has hailed the emergence of a young group of “genuine Test players” he believes promise an exciting future for Australian rugby.

Most of the 35-man squad returned to Australia on Tuesday, following a Spring tour which yielded mixed results with Test wins over England and Wales, a draw against Ireland, losses to New Zealand and Scotland and midweek victories over Gloucester and Cardiff.

Deans didn’t want to evaluate where the world No.3 ranked Wallabies were at the halfway point of a four-year World Cup cycle, but said if the tournament was held tomorrow Australia would be “a shot” of winning.

And clearly there was a lot of improvement to come in the next two years from such a young squad.

“I think we’ve shown that through this year. We’ve just got to add consistency which comes with experience and obviously when you look at the profile of the group it’s a remarkably young group and they are learning in the toughest arena,” Deans said at Sydney airport.

The New Zealand-born coach said the squad felt they were making headway, as indicated by their impressive 33-12 win over Wales in the final fixture.

And while some close results didn’t go their way, there had been a lot of pluses in terms of player development.

“The emergence of some blokes off very little background, who are going to be genuine Test players and are going to serve Australia well for a long period of time,” Dean said.

Among those mentioned by Deans were backs Will Genia, Quade Cooper and Digby Ioane and props Ben Alexander and Benn Robinson and lock Dean Mumm.

Asked what Australia had to do to be a major force, Deans said it was a matter of adding to a good foundation.

“It is evident that this group has a really exciting future. It would be great to be part of that, because I think it is a very exciting group,” Deans said.

“They are great to work with, They have been fantastic on and off the field.”

Robinson was adamant the Australian scrum which performed well throughout the tour and especially against Wales, was still a work in progress.

“I think there’s plenty of improvement left in us,” Robinson said.

“I think the last scrum against the Irish, it would have been nice to push them back and negate that (last minute) try.”

He praised the team’s scrum coach, former Wallabies and Pumas prop Patricio Noriega for his input and acknowledge the emergence of young forwards including Alexander and flanker David Pocock.

“He (Pocock) is a rock over the ball, I don’t know how blokes can move him, he stepped up big time on this trip,” Robinson said.

Fullback Adam Ashley-Cooper felt the Wales Test represented a turning point for the team and thought the new backline combinations were developing well.

“There was obviously a few setback with Berrick Barnes being sent home (injured) after the first week and Stirling Mortlock never coming over at all, there was a reshuffle and a lot of new combinations and I think we gelled quite nicely given the injury toll,” Ashley-Cooper said.

© AAP 2012

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