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Eales' young Wallabies know no bounds

Chris Hewett previews the Australian rugby union team's tour of Britain

Chris Hewett
Wednesday 30 October 1996 00:02 GMT
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Australians will tell you that John Eales, their captain, is so meek and mild that whenever he shouts a line-out code to his fellow forwards, he finishes by asking: "Is that okay with you guys?" It takes something particularly sharp and pointed to get under the skin of the great Queensland lock but England, world class irritants when it suits them, managed the feat with consummate ease.

In denying the 1996 Wallabies, who begin their three-Test tour of Britain against Scotland A in Galashiels this afternoon, a shot at a Grand Slam to go with the one Andrew Slack and Mark Ella achieved 12 years ago, the English have riled the visitors so comprehensively that Douglas Jardine would have been hard pushed to come up with anything better. The Rugby Football Union deemed that a full international at Twickenham to dovetail with those in Edinburgh, Dublin and Cardiff was far too difficult to organise over a time scale of three months. The Wallabies are scheduled to play at HQ against the Barbarians, but the match could scarcely be more ill- conceived given the fact that the 7 December date collides with a full programme of league matches through the Home Nations.

So it will have to be a Celtic Slam instead and Greg Smith, a 46-year- old former English teacher who took over as national coach when Bob Dwyer was shown the door shortly after last year's flawed World Cup campaign, is of the opinion that his new-look side are equipped to go through unbeaten.

Smith is one of those Aussies who, despite his literary leanings, calls a spade a shovel. Faced with an injury list that denied him the immediate services of a raft of dependable top-level performers, he made great claims for untried youngsters like Ben Tune, David Giffen and Richard Harry, pitched them into the deep end and even though they could only bring him a single Tri-Nations victory over South Africa in Sydney, stuck with them for this trip.

Both coach and captain emphasised that the Australians are mid-way through a rebuilding stage; despite the fact that they have a full season of hard Test activity behind them, they are still scratching around for players competent enough to take on the key roles vacated by Michael Lynagh, Phil Kearns and Willie Ofahengaue. The No 10 shirt worn with such distinction by Lynagh is taking an awful lot of filling. Smith's view that Pat Howard is "potentially the best outside- half in the game" did not cut much ice back in the summer when the Queenslander was dropped from the Test side and then re-instated as a centre.

The Australians probably need this tour more than any in recent memory. The decision of some players to climb into bed with Kerry Packer, Ross Turnbull and their breakaway World Rugby Corporation venture last year caused such an upheaval and compromised so many friendships within the Australian rugby community that no one is even pretending that the squad is back on an even keel. Eales and Smith intend to use the trip as a means of building a new team spirit along the lines of that forged by Nick Farr- Jones and Dwyer in the late 1980s.

They have the perfect opportunity. Leave aside a handful of old-stagers -Tim Horan, Jason Little and a certain David Ian Campese are included in the party - and you are left with a brand new outfit. Of the 26 men who represented Australia at the World Cup in South Africa, half failed to feature in this summer's international programme. Rather like Slack's party in 1984, these Wallabies are waiting to be moulded.

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