An unlikely source of Wallabies inspiration emerges: 'They fought their way back into it'
The Wallabies are drawing inspiration from Queensland's State of Origin boilover as they strive to produce their own backs-to-the-wall victory over the All Blacks.
Just as the Maroons were given little hope of toppling NSW in rugby league's showpiece series opener, the Wallabies have been written off after relinquishing the Bledisloe Cup for an 18th consecutive year with last Saturday's record 42-5 defeat in Sydney.
But Wallabies coach Dave Rennie said his underdogs should take heart from the rookie Queenslanders ahead of Saturday night's final Bledisloe stoush in Brisbane.
"I loved the game last night. What I loved about it was Queensland found themselves down and under pressure and they fought their way back into it," Rennie said.
"Versus what we tried to do last week was try and create a few miracles and (we) lacked patience, so there's a good lesson for us as well."
Rennie said as good as the All Blacks are, they "absolutely" possess weaknesses, too, which the Wallabies can exploit at Suncorp Stadium.
"The frustration for us is we've lacked the patience or lacked communication or lacked the accuracy to expose them," he said.
"We still expect those opportunities to be there. It takes courage and takes a lot of work rate off the ball.
"But, as we showed in Wellington, if you can hang onto the ball you can apply a bit of pressure and because we didn't turn the ball over, we didn't give them a lot of ball.
"We kicked with time and space because certainly off turnover and counter they can hurt you.
"So really in Wellington we were accurate.
"Really, we need to be at our best to knock the All Blacks over and we need to apply pressure to them."
Back-rower Harry Wilson said the Wallabies needed to same the composure as the Maroons to compete with the All Blacks.
"Obviously, especially the last few games, we haven't started very well, just the way Queensland (didn't)," Wilson said.
"Even when they were down, they were very calm and I guess didn't get too flustered.
"Then in the second half, they just went out there and played footy and just slowly grind and grind until they got the points on t he board.
"Obviously we don't want to be that in position early in games when we're down by a fair few points.
"But it is something I guess we can look on if we are down that we can just get back to playing the right footy, playing in their end and building pressure, which could be very beneficial for us."
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I have heard it asked if RA is essentially one of the part owners and I suppose therefor should be on the other side of these two parties. If they purchased the rebels and guaranteed them, and are responsible enough they incur Rebels penalties, where is this line drawn? Seems rough to have to pay a penalty for something were your involvement sees you on the side of the conned party, the creditors. If the Rebels directors themselves have given the club their money, 6mil worth right, why aren’t they also listed as sitting with RA and the Tax office? And the legal threat was either way, new Rebels or defunct, I can’t see how RA assume the threat was less likely enough to warrant comment about it in this article. Surely RA ignore that and only worry about whether they can defend it or not, which they have reported as being comfortable with. So in effect wouldn’t it be more accurate to say there is no further legal threat (or worry) in denying the deal. Unless the directors have reneged on that. > Returns of a Japanese team or even Argentinean side, the Jaguares, were said to be on the cards, as were the ideas of standing up brand new teams in Hawaii or even Los Angeles – crazy ideas that seemingly forgot the time zone issues often cited as a turn-off for viewers when the competition contained teams from South Africa. Those timezones are great for SR and are what will probably be needed to unlock its future (cant see it remaining without _atleast _help from Aus), day games here are night games on the West Coast of america, were potential viewers triple, win win. With one of the best and easiest ways to unlock that being to play games or a host a team there. Less good the further across Aus you get though. Jaguares wouldn’t be the same Jaguares, but I still would think it’s better having them than keeping the Rebels. The other options aren’t really realistic 25’ options, no. From reading this authors last article I think if the new board can get the investment they seem to be confident in, you keeping them simply for the amount of money they’ll be investing in the game. Then ditch them later if they’re not good enough without such a high budget. Use them to get Jaguares reintergration stronger, with more key players on board, and have success drive success.
Go to commentsYeah, and ours is waaay bigger than yours. Just as you's get a semi…oh hold on that never happens
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