Only a World Cup win will do

[Burgs]

Only a World Cup win will do

August 23, 2007 - 4:25PM

Australian coach John Connolly believes the Wallabies' World Cup campaign will be deemed a failure if they don't bring home the Webb Ellis Trophy.

The Wallabies depart Sydney this afternoon to begin final preparations for the tournament with a training camp in Portugal.

Connolly said it would be an advantage for his players to get away from the intense scrutiny they have faced in Australia in recent weeks by having their final camp on foreign soil.

Australia is drawn to meet favourites New Zealand in the semi-finals, but Connolly said anything less than winning a third World Cup would be a failure.

"I guess everyone that goes to the World Cup, if you're in the top seven or eight countries in the world, the goal is to win the World Cup, so anything short of that is a failure I guess," Connolly said at Sydney Airport today.

AAP

[frontrow]

That is correct JC, You can bet if NZ don't win they will deem it a failure, but moreso than us as they have been implementing a long term plan involving resting top tier players, etc, at the detriment to Super14, and the SA rugby send out half strength team therefore following the same vein of prioritising the RWC as the be all and end all...Australia on the other hand has basically improved performances at every step on the road in the past year...
So sure it will be deemed a failure, but i feel we have improved the most of all top tier teams and failure will totally suck, but moreso for the kiwis or South Africans....