The Wallabies World Cup management may take one other large hit with Michael Hooper no actually to make it to France after a horror evening on the MCG which left coach Eddie Jones conceding his workforce was a great distance off a unit in a position to compete with the world’s greatest.
Jones defended his choice of rookie playmaker Carter Gordon to start out simply his third Test in opposition to the All Blacks and mentioned he took “total responsibility” for the 38-7 defeat which consigned the Wallabies to a twenty second straight 12 months with out lifting the Bledisloe Cup and a 3rd straight loss underneath his tenure.
Despite the six attempt to one shellacking, nevertheless, Jones was adamant that his workforce may “turn it around” earlier than the World Cup, though the seven days earlier than the return conflict with the Kiwis in Dunedin might not be sufficient time to reverse Saturday’s consequence.
“I saw enough today to make me believe we can (turn it around),” Jones mentioned within the aftermath of the loss.
“But there‘s a lot of hard work to do. Transforming a team from where they are now to a team that’s capable of beating New Zealand takes a lot of hard work and the clock’s ticking.
“But we’ve still got enough time. Every day counts. We might have to train on the plane on the way over.
“Where there‘s life there’s hope. I’ve coached teams like this before and you can turn it around.
“I saw enough today there to know that we can be a bloody good team. And it doesn’t look like it at the moment. You’re sitting there thinking , “What’s this like talking about?” .
“We can turn around be very good to say for the fans, they gotta keep being hopeful. Keep praying. Whatever God they’ve got. Keep praying to that. We will turn it around.”
Jones didn’t wish to rule Hooper, who’s battling a calf harm which the coach referred to as “very serious”, out of the World Cup, however conceded it was not lower and dry he could be there.
“When you have a serious injury there are deadlines and we need to find out the deadline,” he mentioned.
The absence of Hooper would compound the lack of co-captain Allan Alaalatoa who damage his Achilles on the MCG with an harm cloud additionally over fellow front-rower Taniela Tupou.
But Jones was sustaining his greatest ranges of hope having seen good issues within the opening 20 minutes of the conflict earlier than his workforce “ran out of gas”.
“When you’re not going well everything tends to all happen,” he mentioned.
“And then something happens and it all turns around.
“And we’re just going to got to keep working hard, keep concentrating on the things that are important.
“The good thing for me if we if we went out today and couldn’t play with any cohesiveness or any connection, in the first 20 minutes I’d be putting up my hands and thinking what’s going on here.
“But I didn’t. I saw a team that was that was cohesive connected knew how we wanted to beat New Zealand, but we weren’t quite good enough.
“You get a bit of a whooping, and the injuries come.
“I‘m so proud of our players the way they’ve gone about their work. You know, they’ve worked really hard, but we know it’s not good enough.
“But that’s my fault. That’s my responsibility and I’ll take it on the chin.”
Source web site: www.foxsports.com.au
