“Wales are a team that back themselves a lot”, Cheika explained.
Advertisement
The fiery Rebels star, who will occupy the No. 7 jersey at Twickenham in place of suspended vice-captain Michael Hooper, beat fellow back-rower Ben McCalman to the starting lineup against Wales in one of three changes from the team that thrashed England last Saturday. New Zealand may have to play cup nemeses France in the quarter-finals at the Millennium Stadium where their hopes of victory in 2007 were destroyed at the same stage of the tournament by the northern hemisphere giants.
The Wallabies full-back was forced off the field during the 33-13 victory over England with an ankle problem and did not train yesterday and might not train today.
Organisers World Rugby cited vague “operational and logistical reasons” when they chose to make the draw for this year’s tournament in December 2012, basing the seedings on the world rankings at the time.
“We just want to really do our best against Wales and it’s going to be a big game for us”. The clash against Wales, however, will decide the group victor, which would make for an easier opponent in the quarter-finals.
Wales great Shane Williams has declared Australia the most in-form team at the World Cup, but is adamant the Red Dragons have learned from their past mistakes and are ready to break a Wallabies jinx.
Lancaster has brought in Henry Slade, Jack Nowell, Danny Care and Alex Goode for their World Cup debut in Manchester on Saturday. We have been saying all year about being consistent.
The 32-year-old also equalled Australian David Campese’s record of 64 Test tries for a major rugby nation, with Japan’s Daisuke Ohata the only player ahead of them, with 69. “We closed that game down, and were brilliant in the last 15 minutes against England (12 days ago), coming from behind and showing maturity to close that game down”.
Speaking before Hooper’s punishment was imposed, Larkham said: “We have a couple of excellent players waiting for their chance”.
“I think they’ll probably will have looked at that game from the weekend, our game against England, and seen the opportunities that are there”.
There were concerns that the 26-year-old might join Wycliff Palu and Will Skelton in being sent home from the World Cup because of injury but the prognosis had improved on Monday.
Advertisement
He said: “Gats made a point of saying we can go out and play a little bit more this weekend”.
