Upbeat Wallabies coach Eddie Jones on Friday mentioned he intends to kick off his reign by creating historical past in opposition to world champions South Africa in Pretoria in every week’s time, with a successful mentality key to his new-look Australia.
The former England coach took over when Dave Rennie was axed in January and has been placing the gamers by means of their paces since, whittling them down to a squad he hopes could cause harm on the September-October World Cup in France.
A key activity has been instilling the desire to win, which will likely be put to the check for the primary time within the Rugby Championship at Loftus Versfeld Stadium on July 8 – a venue the place Australia has by no means tasted victory over seven video games stretching again to 1963.
Opportunity to create historical past
“Yeah, 100 percent,” he mentioned on whether or not he was conscious of the Pretoria drought. “We’ve spoken about it since April, it’s a possibility to create historical past right here and we wish to be the primary workforce that does it.
“First you have to think you can win. The most important thing is that’s the mindset you’ve got to be in,” added Jones, who’s in his second stint as Wallabies coach.
“You’ve got to be thinking that and we’re 100 percent committed to winning and then you’ve got to execute a game plan where you win enough possession that you can push them to the other end of the field and keep them under pressure.”
Asked if that might contain a kicking technique, Jones replied: “Any way you can mate, just get up the other end of the field, whether you run and pass or kick, it doesn’t matter, as long as you get up there.”
Jones chosen a 34-man squad for the Rugby Championship, which will even see Australia face Argentina earlier than two Bledisloe Cup fixtures with the All Blacks forward of the World Cup.
He left 4 gamers at dwelling as they departed Friday — Andrew Kellaway, Jordan Petaia, Matt Philip and Langi Gleeson, who’re persevering with to get well from accidents.
A brand new period
While Jones exuded confidence, he additionally confused it was “a new team, new coaching staff, new players, new captains”, with Michael Hooper and James Slipper sharing the armband, and the final word objective was successful the World Cup.
“We don’t need to get ahead of ourselves,” he mentioned. “There’s a dash, we wish to get out of the gates shortly, however generally the dash doesn’t win the marathon.
“We’re not focused on South Africa, we’re focused on ourselves. This is a game about us, we want to put a new standard of Wallaby rugby forward and set the tone for our campaign.”
Veteran scrum-half Nic White revealed Jones had additionally addressed self-discipline as a precedence, bringing referees to every coaching session, whereas proving to be a tricky taskmaster.
“He doesn’t let anyone, on the field or off the field, just float by, he’s on you,” White mentioned.
“If you’re cruising by means of a second, he’ll choose it up fairly shortly.
“Everything is about a winning mindset, and it’s infectious. We’re in a good place at the moment.”
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