'It's going to be better': Carter Gordon's verdict on poor goal kicking
Carter Gordon is confident his wobbly goal-kicking will improve in time for the Wallabies' Rugby World Cup opener against Georgia next week.
Gordon only managed one success from five attempts in their tournament warm-up loss to France, but the young playmaker said he was up to the challenge of carrying the team's kicking duties.
The issue was problematic for the Wallabies at the last World Cup in 2019 in Japan, with the role shared between Bernard Foley, Christian Lealiifano, Reece Hodge and Matt Toomua before their quarter-final elimination.
This time Gordon, who was preferred at No.10 by coach Eddie Jones ahead of Quade Cooper and Foley, is the starting choice and insists he will improve.
After some niggles limited his practice through Super Rugby, the Melbourne Rebels star said he now had "no excuse".
"Obviously, on the weekend, I didn't have the goal-kicking performance I was after and I'm working hard at it at the moment," Gordon said following the Wallabies' open training session in front of 2000 locals at the Stade Roger Baudras just outside Saint-Etienne.
"It's going to be better."
He said playing against France in front of a full house at Stade de France, where they will face Georgia on September 10 (AEST) in their first pool game, was an ideal preparation.
"It's been a pretty good week in France - playing at the Stade de France was an awesome experience. It's an unreal stadium," Gordon said.
"I think it's put myself and the team in good stead for the first game of the World Cup."
The 22-year-old, who has played five Tests, said the confidence shown by Jones had given he and the other youngsters in the team belief heading into their first World Cup with 25 from 33 in the squad at their first tournament.
"The confidence Eddie has in myself and the team is huge, and that really drives me and it drives the team ... I just can't wait to get out there and play again," he said.
Flanker Fraser McReight, who replaced long-time leader Michael Hooper in the squad, said the team felt unconditional support from the coach.
"We had George Gregan in earlier in the week and he said you don't get experience until someone backs you," McReight said.
"For us, we've got the backing through Eddie and it fills me with confidence and I know it is going through the rest of the group.
"Just the group itself, we play with confidence and we all love each other so I'm super excited to rip in with these lads."
Latest Comments
I think you've confused loss ratio with win ratio (I already gave you those numbers).
Not according to you're theory of winning rugby it doesn't "reflect performance", but maybe you have a further opinion on that two year period of success I mentioned? This decade they have had two years of winning football (SR AU) and the other two years with just the sole team winning (SRP).
I think you're looking for something in my post that isn't there, I'm just providing informational and letting a normal debate flow from it(sadly there forums aren't setup to capitlize on this time of community evolvement). What you need to focus on providing reason for is the lack of SR success in 00's, while obtain consistent/good national success. Does it not necessarily work both ways? The national team can obviously do well despite the clubs not, but can you say the national team will do well if it has winning club sides? Ie they can focus on that lower level creating a winning culture and let the top take care of itself? As I have said above, the one striking reason the Wallabies still had good results in the 00's (same win rate as when they had much better SR results around 2011), is despite only having one team with a winning season a lot of the time they were some of their best winning seasons in SR history.
Also as per you refer to recent consolidation this year and possible improvement and/or change of how the data needs to be interrupted, that pretty much applies to everything so far in the 20's, i'm not sure it's worth trying there either. The 10's, where the 'winning formula' theory works, and 00's, where it doesn't, are the more consistent era's (provide more reliable data) imo.
Go to commentsThe players have to play to the " gameplay " they trained for , instructed by the coaches .
England looked lost when Ireland upped the ante.
In contrast all the Irish players looked far better coached and attacked in unity .
Also
To criticise a 1.75 and 13 stone ball player for not being able to tackle expertly is like criticising Maro Itoje for not having a decent sidestep . Stupid.
Anyone knows a retreating pack makes the life of the 9 and 10 very difficult and this where the game turned .
That and silly penalties , dropped balls etc etc .
Borthwick will be here for a while But the team is crying out for better direction from the coaches .
Is the RFU listening .