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Australia's Phil Waugh feeling his age ahead of Wales Test
By Wayne Smith
November 27, 2008 LATELY Phil Waugh has been feeling his age, and playing alongside Richard Brown in Australia's backrow against Wales on Saturday will not make him feel any younger.
Of the six European spring tours Waugh has been involved in, not counting last year's World Cup in France, this has been the most testing personally.
Before being named this week in the run-on XV against Wales, he had started in only one of the three Tests to date, the difficult but less-than-glamorous clash with Italy in Padova.
But he was not even required as a reserve for the two most recent internationals against heavyweights England and France.
Watch the Wallabies play Wales in Cardiff LIVE on Fox Sports 2 from 130am (EDT) on Sunday 30 November
Bad enough that George Smith, his rival for years in a nip-and-tuck battle for recognition as Australia's best openside flanker, should have dramatically pulled away this year to establish himself as the clear first choice in the position, but Waugh is no longer even assured of a relatively soft landing on the bench.
Instead, 20-year-old David Pocock has regularly usurped his place among the reserves, part of coach Robbie Deans's apparent policy of building the Wallabies in his own image by investing heavily in youth.
"I felt old, mate," Waugh replied when asked if he felt he had been left behind.
"I'm 29. I'm getting on. I guess that's the way Robbie's done things this year. He's interchanged guys and given everyone opportunities."
It has been a huge test of Waugh's character. The last time the Wallabies played at Millennium Stadium on a spring tour, in November 2006, he was not only in the side but captain.
The match finished in a 29-29 draw after it seemed from the early exchanges the Wallabies were going to swamp their hosts, but Waugh as ever was in the thick of things, trying his hardest to traumatise opposing five-eighth Stephen Jones.
"He's such a competitive player," Jones said with feeling.
Competitive is Waugh's defining quality but he also is the ultimate team man and as frustrated as he must have been at being passed over for the Twickenham and Stade de France Tests, he kept putting in at training alongside Smith and Pocock.
"I think it's about working with those guys rather than fighting against them all the time but I'm just pleased to get the opportunity this week," Waugh said.
It will have pleased him to learn that Deans rates Six Nations champions Wales as the toughest game of the European tour because that's the kind of Test match he revels in.
"I enjoy playing the Welsh," he said. "They're a fun team to play because they play a lot of football and also Millennium Stadium is one of the great stadiums around the world. I really enjoy coming here but all the guys are excited."
Excited? Brown can hardly contain himself. The raw-boned product of a Julia Creek cattle property, he has heard tales that these Welsh folk like to have a bit of a singalong while watching their rugby and he's keen to hear what they sound like. But he reckons they'll have to be pretty good to beat the Poms singing God Save the Queen at Twickenham
Well yes, he was told, the Welsh are pretty good singers but from a Wallabies perspective, it's better that they never get started. If 80,000 Welshmen start beating out Bread of Heaven, it's a fair bet the Wallabies will be in deep trouble.
Brown, 24, took it all on board.
"Thanks for the tip," he said, shaking hands. "We'll see what we can do."
Oh yes, that's got to be making Phil Waugh feel very old indeed.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,...-23217,00.html
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