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Waugh praises Waratahs in title bid
24th April 2008, 15:00 WST
NSW captain Phil Waugh has lauded his team’s amazing strength of character as the Waratahs strive to complete the biggest turnaround in Super rugby history with an elusive maiden title this season.
The Waratahs finished second last in 2007 - above only the hapless Queensland Reds - but the class of 2008 have the opportunity to snare second place on the ladder and, with it, the inside running for a home semi-final with victory over the Sharks at the SFS on Saturday night.
Suddenly, barely a month after being widely condemned as the competition’s great underachievers, the Waratahs are daring to believe they can pull off the impossible.
No team in 12 previous years of Super rugby can boast of going from 13th to first in a single season.
“For a side that I guess performed so poorly last year there’s a really good feel amongst this team,” Waugh said today.
“There are a lot of guys who experienced last year, which has probably turned into a positive for us. We’ve been able to win the close games.
“This competition is about winning games when you don’t play particularly well and we’ve been able to squeeze out a couple of close wins and they all add up at this stage of the season.”
Lost by most in the misery of 2007 was the fact the Waratahs were decimated by the absence for most or all of the season of mainstays Waugh, Chris Whitaker, Dan Vickerman, Mat Rogers, Wendell Sailor, Al Kanaar and Shaun Berne.
And even when they started this season with four wins from their first six games, the Waratahs were chastised for playing boring rugby while coach Ewen McKenzie was told his services would not be required in 2008.
But Waugh today paid tribute to his resolute troops for their ability to galvanise as a unit and maintain focus on trying to please the arguably most demanding fans in Australian sport.
“It’s just part of the game here in Sydney. You could be winning every week but, if you’re not looking great and exciting everyone, then you tend to get the criticism,” he said.
“I guess that’s just the nature of the beast here in Sydney.
“The beauty of it is that the team has always stayed pretty confident about the direction we’re heading and we still feel like we haven’t played nearly our best football, which is exciting with four rounds to go.”
The Waratahs, though, are well aware they will need to produce their best rugby on Saturday to beat the Sharks, the 2007 minor premiers who have lost only one game this campaign to be sitting one competition point above the Waratahs in second position.
The Tahs, who have named an unchanged line-up for the third match in a row, are particularly conscious of the threat that French international Frederic Michalak poses.
Not that Kurtley Beale is fretting about his five-eighth duel with Michalak, which could well decide the outcome.
“Well, I’ve been playing against your Dan Carters and Matt Giteaus, so I’m just going to treat it like playing another game, playing against one of those blokes.
“I’m just going to follow my game plan and stick to my little goals in the game and just try and forget about him. If he pops up, he pops up.
“They’ve got a lot of Springboks in the team so we’re not just going to focus on a few of them. We’re going to focus on the whole team and try and really give it to them.”
AAP
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