Pocock celebrates triumphant return
DAVID Pocock never felt finished as a Wallaby even when eyeballing a bull elephant in remote Zimbabwe where his Test updates trickled through by text last year.
The flanker is a marvel and not just because he’s added 20 per cent to the fear factor that the Wallabies will stir in opponents worldwide after tormenting Ireland.
It wasn’t only the 15 tackles, three turnovers, seven obstinate ball- carries, his calm and the match- clinching try last Saturday night but the lift he gave every teammate.
“Players like Dave never lose their touch with the game … he’s special and it’s like he’s never left the gold jersey,” Kurtley Beale said of the 67- Test warhorse.
The value of that 18- 9 statement against the world’s No. 2 team was immense ahead of the second Test in Melbourne on Saturday.
Finally, this was a Wallabies team starting the Test season in full- blast Septem- ber form, not with a rusty loosener, and with the temperament to handle the adversity of a poor no- try call.
Pocock and Michael Hooper have now won nine of the 15 Tests they have paired together for in the backrow and, fitness willing, they are here to stay for a second World Cup next year.
On his conservationslanted break in his Zimbabwean homeland last year, Pocock stood in awe of a wild bull elephant 10m away on a guided national park walk.
“With no Wi- Fi on the farm, my cousin was texting updates of games I wasn’t seeing this time a year ago,” Pocock said of last year’s hotand- cold June Tests.
“Even with a fair bit going on … you do think about what an incredible opportunity it is to represent Australia.”
His Test career might have been finished but he never doubted that the formula of an African adventure- Japanese seasonBrumbies comeback would refresh him for the Wallabies.
“You just back yourself that if you are doing all the prep, physically and mentally, you’ll get back to your best,” Pocock said.
The first Test furnace was no place for mild comebacks with huge hits like Hooper’s which left kid fly half Joey Carbery winded on the turf.
“There weren’t a lot of people talking about the Australian physicality before the game but you saw how physical they were in the first 10 to 15 minutes,” Irish skipper Peter O’Mahony said.