Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
They’re wizards but you can beat the brilliant boys from Oz
BEATING Australia is one of the biggest challenges in world sport – but it is achievable.
They booked their place in next weekend’s World Cup final with a one-sided win over Fiji yesterday, and now face the winners of this morning’s early kick-off between England and Tonga.
Australia have been fortunate that over the last 15 years they’ve had at least four generational players.
Darren Lockyer, Greg
Inglis, Cameron Smith and Johnathan Thurston have been head and shoulders over most in the world and will go down as immortals.
That doesn’t often happen all at once.
The fact that they have all played together for Queensland has given them a spine who fully understand each other’s games.
Of those four, hooker Smith is leading the Kangaroos in this tournament and he’s a player that just always has time.
He’s not playing tackle-to-tackle, he’s playing it set-to-set and sees the match like a game of chess.
When you get to that level you see the game a lot clearer than most people.
Australia also has a huge talent pool. There are more under-16s playing in the Penrith area of Sydney than in the whole of England – that puts it into context what we are up against. When you play against the Kangaroos you know you’re up against a ruthless side that will grind you down and look after the ball.
They are not looking to score on the first tackle all the time, they want to keep hold of possession and build pressure.
That patience and self-discipline in the side to not make mistakes or push passes is what their game has been built on. I have played in games against Australia where we’ve lost the ball and not seen it again for 10 minutes.
There has been a lot said about how good their defence has been – but I think that comes off the back of how strong their attack is and the pressure they build.
It often leaves teams with no juice when they get the ball.
But any side is beatable and they will know themselves they’re not invincible.
You just have to play exceptionally well – there’s no way around it and that’s probably the biggest compliment you can pay them.
Every player has to bring a nine or a 10 out of 10 game to the field, and if you can do that you’ve got a chance of winning.