By Cameron Storey
foxsports.com.au
June 14, 2009
The Wallabies began their Test season with a 31-8 defeat of Italy in Canberra. Australia lock Nathan Sharpe spoke to foxsports.com.au about the result and their early season form.

A good win over the Italians in your second game of the season, how did you rate the performance overall?
I think it was pretty good but there is still a few things we can improve on, particularly around the breakdown making sure we recycled quick ball. But the good thing was the commitment from all the guys was fantastic and we made some really good situation out of things that weren’t looking that productive at the time. It is another step forward from the Barbarians, Italy are a very proud rugby nation and I thought it was a very good start for us.

The Italians were very willing in defence, they had a fair bit of possession and really made you guys work hard for the ball.
Yeah definitely, when you play the Italians, they always have that strong forward mentality and work well at slowing the ball down which we will have to look at improving for the next game. But in general our set piece was good and we produced some genuine line breaks which was also outstanding I thought.

You guys set a great platform for the backs and Matt Giteau guided you round very well. His midfield combination with Berrick Barnes is really working well for you isn’t it?
I think that is the way Robbie seems to like to play, with two ball players and that certainly makes a difference. Matt can go forage one side and Berrick the other and then you have a left and right foot combination kicking as well which is always very hard to defend against because you have the whole filed to cover with just the fullback and one or two wingers at any stage.

James O’Connor had an amazing run-on debut with a hat-trick. He did not look overawed at all did he?
Yeah he did really well. James is obviously a bloke who has not taken long at all to step up to senior football. He has come out of school a year or two ago and has picked up where he left off in First XV at school

You have had a bit of a look at a couple of ex-league players in the last couple of weeks. How do you rate Craig Gower’s performance against that of Sonny Bill Williams for the Barbarians?
A bit different in the sense Craig is a ball player and Sonny Bill is a big, hard-running bloke. I think both of those guys are going to benefit from quality rugby over the next few years. So a lot of their development will depend on where they decide to play the rest of their rugby. So if they play in good competition they will improve a lot quicker and get a lot better. But I thought Craig was really good in certain parts last night. Obviously it’s first Test match and I think he is enjoying the change. He pulled off some good tackles and you would expect that coming from a rugby league background. And I think that was only his fifth or sixth game of five-eighth in union and that is generally a position that takes years to get down pat so he has done pretty well.

Are you guys happy with where you are this early in the season?
Yeah I think so. I think just the way the guys are going about their work off the field and on the field is fantastic. You are never going to get everything right, especially this early in the season but to me this group are striving and everyone wants to make that next level.

Last year was your first under coach Robbie Deans and the first couple of Tests were a bit rusty but you seem to have hit the ground running. Is a big part of that because it is your second year under Robbie and you guys are more used to his systems now?
Without doubt. When the squad assembled I think there were only two guys who had not been involved with his regime and those guys picked it up pretty quickly, while the rest of the group had been there before. That familiarity certainly helps and gets things rolling along nicely.


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