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Wallabies must shed cotton wool to win
Phil Wilkins | August 8, 2008
THAT titan of Australian rugby union, Alex Evans, arrived back in Brisbane from the coronation of the new King of Tonga in time to tune into the coverage of the All Blacks beating the Wallabies, and rued the opportunity lost.
It gets cold on his property up at Mount Tamborine and he cut flooded gum and black wattle for the fire, chain-sawing away his frustration for the 39-10 loss. The suspicion nagging within became a conviction.
Captain of Queensland in the 1960s, he was Alan Jones's forward technician on the 1984 grand slam of the British Isles, coached Wales in the 1995 World Cup, was Greg Smith's foreman on the unbeaten 1996 European tour and was in Rod Macqueen's 1999 World Cup-winning party. Half a century in the game and they don't come wiser.
"The boys played superbly to beat South Africa and then the All Blacks here," Evans said. "The set-play try at Eden Park by Adam Ashley-Cooper was outstanding. But there has been a tendency of inconsistency over the last five years or so. We'd had two fantastic wins, but then we became a little precious and said: This is a very important Test, this is history if we knock it off, but tended to cotton-wool ourselves.
"When something is within our grasp, we tend to lose it, not because we don't want to win, but because we're frightened to do more, frightened we won't go into the game fresh. Take a person like Grant Hackett. He breaks world swimming records or comes close to world records in full training. I'll be criticised for this, but I think we have to learn to do the hard yards, to do extra work. I just don't think we are tough enough mentally to do that."
Evans said coaches Jones and Macqueen were conscious they would be judged on their last winning performance and invariably raised the level of training to increase team skills and attack with more purpose and resolve. "They developed a certain inbred toughness where players measured themselves against the best in the world. Like Robbie Deans, Jones and Macqueen were hands-on coaches. They grew a tougher mental and physical ethos within the team. They'll say we cannot work harder than at present. Sacrifices have to be made to be the best and it might mean sacrificing some weight sessions to do extra skills.
"Look at the great players, Tim Horan or John Eales or Chris Latham. They did more. They took themselves off and worked harder on their skills."
Evans compared the attitude of modern players and athletes with the work ethic of multiple gold medal-winning oarsman James Tomkins.
"We tend to think: I have to play well, I'm going to reserve my energies," Evans said. "Then you see James Tomkins, one of the best rowers the world has ever seen, still bashing himself, still doing the hard yards. There is no stone unturned when he goes into his race."
Evans recalled Australia's 1984 grand slam side and 1999 World Cup team building momentum, raising the bar as the tours progressed. He said Robbie Deans had inherited a squad of "marvellous athletes, as good as we have ever had" and because of his experience and successes, the new coach would not be stampeded into dramatic action. When Deans coached Canterbury at National Provincial Championship level, they trained twice a day, morning and afternoon.
"It's the sort of attitude which makes you tough. It's your bread and butter," Evans said. "It's a work ethic that perhaps stops you from falling into the trap before a very big game of wanting to conserve energies instead of maintaining a hard-nosed core attitude for that special occasion.
"With people who are world champions, it takes something special to ignore the physicality and harshness of the game and put it behind you, and lift again. It's an opportunity we lost in Auckland because of the residual attitude of what's happened in recent years. We haven't seized what we could have taken. We're talking about tiny things, the extra two per cent which actually wins big games.
The Australians were saying things in the paper that, 'We trained well, we're ready.'
"If they were ready, they would have smashed New Zealand. The New Zealanders were ready, too.
"But it will come. This is a very young, talented Australian side. Players like James Horwill, Stephen Moore, Hugh McMenamin and George Smith are tough people.
Stirling Mortlock is a tough person as captain. Matt Giteau and Berrick Barnes are tough. The next few weeks require ambition and sacrifice and perhaps less golf and less beer. Being Tri Nations champions and carrying the Bledisloe Cup should be as much fun as you want in rugby."
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