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Wallabies boss Rennie was asked what he saw as England's strengths
By AAP
Wallabies coach Dave Rennie is set to call on his full complement of overseas-based players when his side attempts to end the Eddie Jones curse later this year.
England coach Jones is under intense pressure after finishing the Six Nations tournament with just two wins from five matches.
But if he does keep his job, he will enter the three-Test series against Australia in July knowing that he has a perfect 8-0 record against the Wallabies.
Rennie played the straightest of bats when asked if Jones' current woes as England coach were as bad as the English media are making it out to be.
"You know I don't read the media," Rennie replied.
But the Wallabies coach was more forthcoming when asked about England's strengths.
"They're a very big territory team. They'll be fit as and they'll work really hard for each other," Rennie said.
"Their kick-sprint is probably the best in the world. (They have the) ability to kick and apply pressure and try to force errors.
"They'll defend really well, they'll bring a lot of line speed, and they'll back their set piece.
"Our job when the time comes will be to diffuse those. Our set piece will need to be really good. We'll need to do a good job in the air, and try to win the kicking battle to play the right end of the field."
A change to eligibility rules means the Wallabies will be able to call up to three of their overseas-based stars to play in the series.
Rennie is yet to decide who they will be, but Quade Cooper, Samu Kerevi and Rory Arnold will be among the frontrunners.
"We've got three options per series, so who will depend on where we're at and the depth we have in certain spots and maybe even on injury," Rennie said.
"But I'm OK with that. We want the majority of the players coming from here.
"What we know is a number of those boys are on massive money and on our budget we can't afford to bring them home, even though that would be the ideal, to get everyone back playing here.
"We will definitely, for the English series, have overseas influence."
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Latest Comments
Disagree.
The challenge for the All Blacks now that they have 7 of 8 starting forwards locked in and all but one bench forward (only one loose forward and bench loosie to settle on) is to sort out the starting backline as only 9 Roigard, 12 J. Barrett, 11 Clarke and 15 Jordan had good to outstanding seasons in 2024. All the other backs were inconsistent or poor and question marks going into 2025.
Go to commentshe should not be playing 12. He should be playing 10 and team managers should stop playing players out of position to accommodate libbok.
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