Coach’s plea for passion from squad

EWEN McKENZIE has played the card Robbie Deans never had in his pack.

The former Wallaby didn’t need a second invitation yesterday to express his passion for the Australian jersey.

In fact, McKenzie made a point of it as he sat next to Adam Ashley-Cooper, James Slipper and Scott Fardy.

The question was posed half in jest as to whether McKenzie, as an Aussie, would be able to urge his players to ‘‘hate’’ Kiwis during his pre-test speech at Westpac Stadium tomorrow night. And though ‘‘hate’’ wasn’t in his vocabulary, McKenzie made it clear there would be no shortage of passion and emotion.

He spoke to the gathered media, but his message was to the three blokes beside him and the rest of a squad that conceded 47 points in Sydney.

‘‘I’m angry about last week personally,’’ McKenzie said. ‘‘I’ve played plenty of games [for Australia]. I don’t suffer losing. I can’t sit here and pretend four or five days later like it’s all forgotten.’’

The point is, McKenzie played 51 tests in the Wallaby jersey. Deans played 51 fewer than that in green and gold.

And hence, McKenzie’s message is a powerful one.

‘‘The mental part of the game is very important. I sit here and think, ‘the All Blacks have earned the right to be the most complacent team in world rugby’, but they’re not,’’ he said.

‘‘They front up. There is enough pressure and enough whatever it is that drives them to get out there and be on the ball and switched on. Other teams in the world have to find the same space.’’

Across town, All Blacks fullback Israel Dagg provided a hint when asked by an Australian scribe how he kept getting up against a Wallaby side he beats so regularly. ‘‘In New Zealand rugby is high up and if you lose it’s the end of the world,’’ Dagg said to some laughter.

But he wasn’t joking. He hated losing, but more than that, feared being in the team that lost the Bledisloe Cup.

Deans spent nearly six years trying to instil the same passion for winning it in the Wallabies camp. But you always wondered how he went when it came to tugging on the nationalistic heartstrings in the sheds before kickoff.