Rugby: Wales defence coach Shaun Edwards has warned his players they will have to speed up the game that earned them a third Grand Slam in eight years if they are to keep pace with Australia over the next three weeks.
Edwards led the advance guard of 16 players to Brisbane over the weekend to prepare for the three-Test series this month and has been letting the players know what he feels it will take to pick up a first win over a southern hemisphere side away from home in 25 years.
“The Welsh statistics against any team in the southern hemisphere don’t make good reading, especially away from home, and we have to go out and prove we are mentally strong enough to win down here,” Edwards said. “But this team wants to make its own history and has no hang-ups about the statistics from the past. They are a little bit angry they haven’t beaten Australia in the recent past.
“I’ve been telling them it will take 80 minutes of sustained intensity, sustained accuracy and sustained speed of the game to come out on top. It is about getting there a step quicker than we are used to doing and we have to realise it is a bit of a quicker game and we have to adjust to that extra pace. The Australians are very skilful and we can’t afford to give them an inch.”
Having eased Grand Slam skipper Sam Warburton and his team-mates into action with a few swim sessions and light runs, Edwards took the players to leading local club Brothers in Brisbane for some gentle opposed practice today.The rest of the squad arrive with stand-in coach Rob Howley in the early hours of tomorrow morning. The combined squad will have its first run-out on Wednesday.
Having been to Australia many times in his rugby league career, including a year spent playing for Balmain Tigers in Brisbane, Edwards knows all about the difficulties of overcoming of jet-lag. “If the whole team had arrived together this week we wouldn’t have given ourselves any chance of winning at the weekend. It takes a minimum of five days to fully overcome the effects of jet-lag.
“That’s why we came over early — it was the only viable option. I still feel absolutely shattered at the moment and we won’t be doing our first contact session until tomorrow. We also need to factor in the conditions, because even though it is winter here it will be quite warm. I’ve played here many times and I know it can be humid and energy-sapping for a northern-hemisphere player.
“The humidity can really test your stamina and we have to be ready to react to that. It will probably be more of a problem for the players who arrived later in the week.” The Wallabies will face Scotland in Newcastle tomorrow before transferring to Brisbane to take on Wales in the opening Test of their three-match series.
