Coach Robbie Deans warned his Wallabies yesterday New Zealand will not give up their Tri-Nations crown easily, a day ahead of a winner-takes-all encounter in Brisbane today.
The All Blacks have held the Tri-Nations crown, symbol of southern hemisphere rugby supremacy, since 2005 and lead the Wallabies by one point heading into the final showdown.
New Zealand are the favorites with Australia coming off a record 53-8 hammering by South Africa in Johannesburg a fortnight ago.
Today’s Test is also the third in the four-match Bledisloe Cup series between the two rivals, so much is riding on the outcome at Lang Park.
“The All Blacks have got the Tri-Nations and the Bledisloe Cups. They own both of them and they’ve owned both of them for a long time,” said Deans, who is coaching against his country of birth.
“So they’re not going to let them go easily. We haven’t had them for a long time. There’s a message in that alone. That’s the question that’ll be answered tomorrow,” he said.
Deans, the first foreign coach of the Wallabies, has been working since the Johannesburg debacle to mentally repair his players.
“What happened in the last Test match has happened. You can’t change that,” skipper Stirling Mortlock said. “We get an opportunity to do something special tomorrow night and that’s been our sole focus.”
Deans said he is excited by the prospect of his players realizing their potential against the formidable All Blacks.
“I don’t think we’ve seen that yet. We’ve seen glimpses of it. But this is a one-off encounter with everything at stake. So I think you’ll see more than just a glimpse tomorrow night,” he said.
“The key to this game will be doing that relentlessly because the All Blacks will be doing that. They’ll be attacking relentlessly for 80 minutes. That’s not something that daunts us. That’s something that excites us,” he said.
The Wallabies have been strengthened by the inclusion of outside-center Ryan Cross, flanker George Smith, lock Nathan Sharpe, tighthead prop Al Baxter and hooker Stephen Moore.
All Blacks coach Graham Henry is confident but wary of his team’s chances of hanging on to the Tri-Nations trophy for another year.
“We just need to make sure we keep our feet on the ground. We played in Sydney a few weeks ago and got well beaten, so playing Australia in Australia is a major hurdle,” Henry said yesterday.
Back in July the Wallabies celebrated an epic 34-19 victory over New Zealand.
“We didn’t get it right in Sydney. We were out-thought, out-coached and out-played ...,” said Henry, predicting an entertaining encounter.
“The rugby public and rugby in general couldn’t get a better occasion tomorrow — great ground, marvellous contest and winner-takes-all — so you could not have plotted a better final to this series,” he said.
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