Captain bucks tradition with media no-show
The Wallabies were showing signs of nerves yesterday as they continued to duck for cover from the media on the eve of their Bledisloe Cup test at Eden Park.
The Australians made the unheard of decision to not put captain Michael Hooper up to the media yesterday.
It’s traditional in test rugby that a team’s captain fronts the media after the captain’s run.
However, Wallabies management have continued to hide their players away from speaking to New Zealand media this week, by instead putting up their lowprofile forwards coach Simon Raiwalui.
The Wallabies didn’t arrive in New Zealand until Thursday night. They spent the week in Melbourne, out of the spotlight and chose to put Hooper up to the media over there, before the team flew out.
There were no players available to speak on arrival at Auckland Airport and they’ve followed this up by breaking the long standing tradition of a team’s captain speaking on the eve of a test.
Raiwalui, who played for Fiji, said he didn’t know why the Wallabies had decided that none of their players would talk to New Zealand media.
‘‘I’m not too sure, we only arrived last night, so that’s probably one of the reasons,’’ Raiwalui said.
For last year’s Bledisloe Cup test in Auckland, the Wallabies spent the week on Waiheke Island and enjoyed mingling with the locals, as well as doing regular media sessions with journalists from both countries.
But Wallabies coach Michael Cheika did appear to be frustrated with some of the reporting from New Zealand media organisations.
It’s unknown whether this had led to a distinctively low-key approach this year.
‘‘I’m not in charge of the logistics, but we’re under no illusions of what’s in front of us,’’ Raiwalui said.
‘‘It was a good weekend last weekend, it’s a job half done, so we’ve been concentrating on ourselves getting better, working on plenty of different things, but getting those things right and the things that we can control.’’
If rugby coaching doesn’t work out in the future for Raiwalui, who was born in Auckland but educated in Australia, he could look for a new career in talking without actually saying anything.
The former prop sidestepped pretty much every question thrown at him during his press conference, trotting out similar answers each time.
‘‘We’re under no illusions that they’re going to come out and be firing,’’ he said when asked what they’re expecting from the All Blacks.
‘‘But we’ve been concentrating on ourselves, getting our game plan right and getting those things together.’’