Australia say All Blacks lessons learned before England clash
FILE PHOTO: Rugby Union – Rugby World Cup 2023 – Pool C – Wales v Australia – OL Stadium, Lyon, France – September 24, 2023 Australia’s Angus Bell in action with Wales’ Liam Williams. REUTERS/Sarah Meyssonnier/File Photo
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LONDON, Nov 4 : Australia have thoroughly reviewed last month’s mauling by the All Blacks in the two Bledisloe Cup encounters and feel they have fixed many of the failings as they head into a month of Nations Championship tests in Britain.
Loosehead prop Angus Bell said they had looked to address the weaknesses exposed by New Zealand in their 50-19 win in Auckland and then a runaway 43-21 triumph in Sydney a week later.
“Look, rugby is not really a linear line. There’s a lot of ups and downs. Both in people’s careers and with teams,” Bell told a press conference on Wednesday as they began preparations for Sunday’s clash against England at Twickenham.
“As we know, it’s always like a bit of a roller coaster, but as long as you’re trending upwards, I think that’s the main point of getting better collectively as a team and also individually.”
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Bell said the All Blacks had put Australia under pressure with the pace of their game.
“They were excellent at that, and that’s where we struggled, and that’s something that we’ve implemented in our training to get better.
“We didn’t learn the lessons from the first test match, and then they exposed us on the other ones in the second and I feel like the training week we had prior to coming over here and also now today has been really good, and we’ve actually addressed those and fixed those.”
The 26-year-old Bell said there had been many positives for the Wallabies in recent months under new coach Les Kiss as they put together an unbeaten run of six matches before the blowout against New Zealand.
“I guess my point is we’ve got to be able to change and manoeuvre between teams. Like England aren’t going to be the same as the All Blacks. Do they suit us more or not?
“It’s all about how we prepare, how we train, how we play. We did cop a lot of criticism (after defeat by the All Blacks), but again, that’s part of rugby and we know that it is.”
Australia will also play against Scotland and Wales before the Nations Championship finals weekend at Twickenham on November 27-29.
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Toby Davis)
Source: Reuters
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