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'Lack of fear': How the Wallabies may have the mental edge over the All Blacks at Eden Park
By AAP
It's one of sport's most dominant records, but might sail right over the heads of the fresh-faced Wallabies preparing for their first Eden Park experience against the All Blacks on Sunday.
Unbeaten in any Test at their Auckland fortress in 43 matches and 16 years, you have to go back to 1986 to find the All Blacks' last loss to Australia at the ground.
With no COVID-19 restrictions and 40,000 tickets already sold and a capacity crowd of nearly 50,000 expected, the stage is set for history to repeat.
But no current Australia or New Zealand player was even born in 1986 and, after impressing in a 16-16 draw in Wellington on Sunday, Dave Rennie's men have shown they aren't carrying any old wounds.
"It's good for their confidence, but having said that, they don't know any better," Wallabies attack coach Scott Wisemantel told Big Sports Breakfast.
"There's so many debutants, so many rookies here that they actually don't know (about New Zealand's dominance) which is great, fantastic.
"They're just going in and going 'okay, where's this Eden Park, where is it, what do we do?'
"There's a lack of fear; they're willing to have a go and only thing I and the coaching staff wants out of them is to say 'ease up' or 'pull it back'."
Wallabies halfback Nic White - at 30 a veteran of a side with an average age of 24 - said in his three previous visits it hasn't just been the venue that has thwarted them.
"I'm not sure how much it is to do with the field and how much it is to do with the result," he said.
"I've been there a few times off a couple of wins and a draw and I think that's as much to do with the reaction of their group as it is to where we're playing.
"I don't think it matters where we play them this week, there's going to be a reaction from them.
"This is a new group and we're trying to talk about the reaction we want to get out of the game on the weekend, where we thought we could have taken a result."
Wisemantel said the squad's bubble arrangement made it easy to avoid the media hype within New Zealand and stay one step ahead.
"You've got to be honest, paint the picture," he said.
"They're going to drop three or four players... we know that they'll change something, that's the first thing Kiwi teams do in this situation.
"So we say boys this is coming, what are we going to do about it."
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Latest Comments
There is this thing going around against Siya Kolisi where they don't want him to be known as the best national captain ever, so they strike him down in ratings permanently whenever they can. They want McCaw and reckons he is the best captain ever. I disagree.
Just like they refuse to see SA as the best team and some have even said that should the Boks win a third WC in a row, they will still not be the best team ever. Even if they win every game between now and the WC. That is some serious hate coming SA's way.
Everyone forget how the McCaw AB's intimidated refs, was always on the wrong side, played on the ground etc. Things they would never have gotten away with today. They may have a better win ratio, but SA build depth, not caring about rank inbetween WC's until this year.
They weren't as bad inbetween as people claim, because non e of their losses was big ones and they almost never faced the strongest Bok team outside of the WC, allowing countries like France and Ireland to rise to the top unopposed.
Rassie is still at it, building more depth, getting more young stars into the fold. By the time he leaves (I hope never) he will leave a very strong Bok side for the next 15- 20 years. Not everyone will play for 20 years, but each year Rassie acknowledge the young stars and get them involved and ready for international rugby.
Not everyone will make it to the WC, but those 51/52 players will compete for those spots for the WC. They will deliver their best. The future of the Boks is in very safe hands. The only thing that bothers me is Rassie's health. If he can overcome it, rugby looks dark for the rest of the rugby world. He is already the greatest coach in WR history. By the time he retires, he will be the biggest legend any sport has ever seen
Go to commentsWas it? I just brought it up in some of my posts to rub it in that the AB last year nearly put 100 on a top 6N side lol
I agree to be honest. The biggest key to me that they might be jadded was none of them had mom performances, or even as good as their last three games.
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