Captain Stephen Moore said the team wouldn’t used the comments as motivation, saying: “All I care about are my teammates and my coaches and what we’re doing internally because that provides enough motivation for me”. “But for every Ali and McGregor there are countless athletes for whom blind faith in one’s ability is a slippery slope to delusion”, said the former South African-born Brumbies flyer who accumulated 26 caps for Australia.
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New Zealand will want to recreate a performance similar to their tantalising display last week for their home fans, and with Moody returning and Coles in fine form, the All Blacks should be able to nullify the Wallabies’ attacking threat and create a number of attacking openings for themselves.
“It’s just another game of rugby against the best in the world”.
“I’m not coming over here thinking I need to do anything special to beat the All Blacks”.
On target: Quade Cooper during kicking practice at Westpac Stadium on Friday.
“Quade’s a good player”.
Australia flyhalf Quade Cooper has been recalled to the starting lineup for Saturday’s Rugby Championship clash against New Zealand.
And in spite of the vast pressure he carries in to Saturday’s second Test in Wellington, Cooper said there were 14 other players beside him who were just as important as Australia seeks out its first Bledisloe victory in New Zealand since 2001.
“It’s a non-issue for us as a squad”.
“We’ll keep looking to try and put as much pressure [on] as we can”, Read said.
“I think confirmation bias is part of the reason we nearly never see this kind of honesty from athletes or coaches”. “We’re here to play footy against whoever it is and I know in the past in New Zealand it’s created a bit of a stir but a lot of our guys probably weren’t involved in those moments”.
“We feel like we’re in a pretty good space there so we will see how we go”.
“The wind and the rain will not have any affect on the things that are important about winning this game”, Cheika said.
“We always speak about what is required to win, not about how long we haven’t won for in New Zealand”, Cheika said.
The embarrassing home defeat has outlined major weaknesses in the Wallabies lineup, and Rob Simmons is one of the victims of coach Michael Cheika’s reshuffle.
“A simple way to think about this is to ask how many of our lot might reasonably be expected to appear in a combined ANZAC team”.
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“They’ve had a big week over there with their own disappointment plus the media and their own fans having a crack at them, so we’d be foolish to think that they’re not going to turn up and play really well. There are not many people who expect us to do anything, but internally we understand what we need to do”.
