‘Special things ahead': Lions coach says Wallabies will be a force at 2027 World Cup

The Age

3 days ago

'I said to Joe (Schmidt) before the game there on the pitch that I think special things are going to happen for this team over the next 18 months, and by the time the World Cup comes around they'll be a force to be reckoned with, like everyone's seen in the past.
'They've got some special athletes and some special players and that's no surprise to us of how they've performed over the last couple of weeks.'
When informed of Farrell's comments, Schmidt joked he agrees 'with everything Faz tells me'.
'Faz and I would be good friends, go back a long way, have worked together a lot and we would also be quite like minded around probably studying other teams,' Schmidt said.
'I'd like to think that he's right.'
The Wallabies' victory in Sydney opened the door for the series win by the Lions to carry an asterisk - given the contentious nature of the end of the second Test at the MCG, where the Wallabies argued Jac Morgan's cleanout on Carlo Tizzano, prior to Hugo Keenan's matchwinning try, was illegal.
But Schmidt didn't want to go down that road after the game on Saturday night, which had crept into early Sunday morning by the time the teams finished their media duties.
'We can't get those points back,' Schmidt said.
'We can only try to win the points that are ahead of us. I think I've said before I'm very boring and pragmatic and all we can do is try to affect what happens to us in the future and try to control as much of that as possible by trying to grow.
'The one thing I would say is I felt we grew through the series. We lost the first half of the series poorly, we won the second half, we played well in the first half of the second test, didn't succeed eventually in that test but I felt we deserved to win both halves today.
'We fought our way through very difficult conditions and got destabilised a couple of times but fought our way through that as well.'
Schmidt and Wallabies captain Harry Wilson both revealed the power of Alaalatoa's address to the team on Friday, after the side had struggled to bounce back from the disappointment of losing a thriller in Melbourne.
Schmidt said Alaalatoa had badly injured his shoulder in the 14th minute of the MCG Test but played out the first half in pain and 'with one wing'.
'It was a little bit of the inspiration the players needed yesterday,' Schmidt said. 'We were flat early in the week and we got a little bit of an upswing, but I really think Alan helped.'
Wilson said Alaalatoa had spoken to the team about having to be prepared to suffer to win.
'The thing with Allan, what he says he delivers - and he's spoken to us quite a bit about willing to put your body on the line for the team, whatever it takes to win,' Wilson said.
'In that game in Melbourne he tore his shoulder pretty early and he put his body on the line for the next 25 minutes.
'When he came in and spoke to us the day before a game about what we need to be willing to do for each other to win a game, it really did hit home.'
The Wallabies now turn their attention to two games in South Africa for the Rugby Championship, and Schmidt said he will name a squad on Wednesday.
He confirmed Jake Gordon was in doubt after injuring a hamstring at training, which could see Nic White push out his international retirement for a few more weeks. White was outstanding against the Lions and received a standing ovation when he came off, but Schmidt joked: 'Whitey will rival me maybe in terms of being kind of like Johnny Farnham, one more tour.'