But I’ve also noticed the way they use their big front-five players to get go-forward or to give themselves an offloading option in the middle of the park. That attempt to go more north-south has come in, going a bit more direct. Of course, they have always produced good, strong back-rows who hit the contact area.
In Wales we went through years of losing to them by a score or by a couple of points. But once we got that win, it was almost a mind shift, to the mentality of ‘we can beat these guys’. Then we started doing it on a more regular basis.
There was a period where Australia’s set-piece really struggled as well, though I think they’ve got a pretty decent scrum at the moment. They also lost a lot of players to clubs overseas. That exposed their lack of depth a bit and they’ve worked hard to combat that.
This story is from the October 2023 edition of Rugby World.
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This story is from the October 2023 edition of Rugby World.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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