The Wallabies haven’t won in Johannesburg for 42 years, but coach Eddie Jones is adamant his team can break through at Ellis Park in two weeks in the second match of the Mandela Challenge rugby series against South Africa.
The Australians were the better team, finishing five tries to nil, 30-12, to beat the Springboks in the first Mandela game in Sydney on Saturday, but Jones knows the challenge awaiting his players at Johannesburg’s high altitude on July 23.
Australia historically have problems with the Springboks at Ellis Park, 1 750m above sea level, and have only come away from Johannesburg with one win (11-9 in 1963) in seven visits.
The Wallabies must win the second game to take the Mandela Challenge trophy off South Africa, who won the last time in 2002.
The 28-man squad, which will be named on Monday and leaves on Tuesday, will have 10 days in the republic before flying into Johannesburg on the eve of the match.
Jones is bullish about the Wallabies’ chances after their fourth consecutive win at home this season, among them France and Italy.
”We’ve got a completely different approach. We’re going to South Africa 10 days before the first game, so we will be raring to go for the first game in Jo’burg and we’re going to play some football up there … we can definitely win it,” Jones said on Sunday.
”We are not going over there just to compete, we will be taking on the South Africans in Jo’burg.
”It’s going to be difficult, plenty of teams have failed there. We had Peter Johnson, the former most-capped player for Australia, come and talk to the boys on Friday, and he was part of that 1963 team that beat the Springboks and we’re looking forward to following his footsteps.
”We were a little bit better than they were last night and we will have to be a lot better against them in Jo’burg in two weeks’ time.”
The Australians, with flyhalf Stephen Larkham in full flow, executed their kicking game plan to perfection to turn around the giant Springbok forward pack and race to an 18-3 half-time with three tries.
The South Africans changed their tactics for the second half and enjoyed long periods in Australian territory, but were unable to cross for a try.
”We missed too many tackles [44], you can’t afford for [wingers] Lote Tuqiri and Wendell Sailor to get so much momentum; the most disappointing thing is conceding five tries,” South African coach Jake White said.
”It’s not often that we concede five tries; it’s not that they can’t defend, they just looked flat on the one-on-one defence lines.
”Australia showed that they are a quality team. If you turn the ball over and they literally scored three tries from 80m out, you have to accept that if you make mistakes at this level you’ll get punished.”
The South Africans played their hand by selecting a monster 900kg forward pack, but Jones was pleased with the continued improvement in his forwards.
”I thought the forwards were outstanding. The scrums for the last three weeks have been very good and particularly for the last two weeks our maul defence work was good,” Jones said.
”At half-time, South Africa obviously changed their tactics and wanted to keep the ball off the deck and start to maul, and while they got some yardage they didn’t get ascendancy in that area … that was very pleasing.”
The only downside was the continuing wretched goal-kicking form of inside-centre Matt Giteau, who scored two tries but landed just two goals from five attempts after two from eight the previous week against France in Brisbane.
”We are struggling in the goal-kicking department at the moment and we haven’t paid for our lack of success. Matt’s practising pretty hard and we’re confident he’ll get better in the next couple of weeks,” Jones said. — Sapa-AFP