The Wallabies must learn from South Africa’s failed cricket World Cup campaign ahead of this year’s rugby World Cup in Australia, skipper George Gregan said on Wednesday.
Gregan was in South Africa for the last two weeks with the ACT Brumbies Super 12 team and witnessed first-hand the pressure the Proteas were under as hosts of the cricket’s showpiece, and their subsequent demise.
”The country’s shattered,” Gregan said. ”They’d run big campaigns and I think it was just a given they that would be in the Super Sixes and in the semis and I think they’re still coming to terms with it.”
Gregan said there was a greater burden and more distractions when playing at home.
”There’s going to be a lot of support, there’s going to be a lot of expectation on the home team,” he said. ”I think that expectation probably had a pretty big effect, it
was an external pressure and maybe that affected their (South Africa’s) performance.”
He said he spoke with Australian one-day captain Ricky Ponting before Australia’s Super Six game against Sri Lanka last Friday, and noticed how relaxed the players were.
”They were an hour-and-a-half out of Johannesburg and could go about their business as usual, they could treat it like that and that’s always easier and that’s what the Wallabies were able to do at 1999 World Cup.”
South Africa is the only country to be sole host of the rugby World Cup, in 1995, and win it. Ticket sales for this year’s tournament, starting in Sydney in October, have already topped one million.
Gregan said there needed to be a balance between the team’s commitments as hosts, and the focus and preparation required to play at their best.
”There’s going to be a lot of expectation. We’re hosting a World Cup, we haven’t done it since 1987 and we’re hosting it as the team that won it last time.
”You’ve got to be a realist about it, you’ve got to get the balance right and make sure your preparation, your focus going into each match is 100% so nothing’s got to get in the way of doing that.”
Gregan wouldn’t divulge his plans after the World Cup, only to say this would definitely be his last. – Sapa-AFP