Wallaby EOYT

[RugbyReg]

Fixtures for the 2014 Spring Tour:
- Saturday, 1 November: Barbarians v Qantas Wallabies, Twickenham, London
- Saturday, 8 November: Wales v Qantas Wallabies, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff
- Saturday, 15 November: France v Qantas Wallabies, Stade de France, Paris – Saint-Denis
- Saturday, 22 November: Ireland v Qantas Wallabies, Aviva Stadium, Dublin
- Saturday, 29 November: England v Qantas Wallabies, Twickenham, London

Australian Rugby Union today announced the dates for the Qantas Wallabies 2014 Spring Tour, with fixtures against Six Nations Champions Ireland and next year’s Rugby World Cup hosts England once again on the itinerary.


The tour will also include matches against the Barbarians (for the first time since 2011), Wales at the cauldron that is the Millennium Stadium as well as France in Paris.

Head Coach Ewen McKenzie will be looking for the trip to be as successful as last year’s Spring Tour. After narrowly losing to England at Twickenham, Australia embarked on a four-match winning run making it the most successful Spring Tour since 2008.

On the 2013 Spring Tour, the Qantas Wallabies defeated Italy in Turin (50-20), Ireland in Dublin (32-15), Scotland at Murrayfield (21-15) and most memorably Wales in Cardiff (30-26).

Qantas Wallabies Head Coach Ewen McKenzie is anticipating some hotly-contested battles during the Spring Tour.

“The Spring Tour last year was the most successful in five years for the Qantas Wallabies and we’ll be looking to improve on that come November.

“With the Rugby World Cup just a year away in England, we have scheduled five games against five teams that will bring a different style to each.

“We’ve got England and Wales in our pool for the Rugby World Cup and big improvers in France and Ireland, who just won the Six Nations. That will be a good challenge for us.

“We’ll also get a chance to play two games at Twickenham – the venue where two of our pool games will take place – as part of a tour that should help further our preparations ahead of the World Cup.”

 

[Braveheart81]

Good tour.

With no Italy or Scotland it presents a tough run of games.

Facing Wales and England a year out from the RWC at the end of our season will be a good test for our RWC pool games against them.

 

[Bairdy]

Holy hell that is one tough run of games.
That Barbarians game would be the ideal time to play guys on the fringe of the Wallabies 23. But isn't there going to be a reduction in the number of players on tour to Europe this year?

 

[TOCC]

Extremely tough tour, I'm considering going on tour this year

 

[Train Without a Station]

5 Games. Bit long when you consider the touring party won't have many players outside the 23.

 

[Richo]

5 Games. Bit long when you consider the touring party won't have many players outside the 23.

They might have to expand the numbers a bit this year, although it's unlikely they'll ever get back to the mid-30s.

 

[JSRF10]

The playing party is usually limited as the host union only has to pay for 45 for the week, including players, coaches, physios, blazers etc. I remember there was a farcical situation in 2012 Ireland only brought 29 players to tour BNZ because the IRFU blazers wanted to come but didn't want to pay for an additional player, leaving Ian Madigan at home.

 

[Tip]

In a World Cup, you play 5 /6/7 games in 7 weeks to make the final. Wallabies to play 5 games on the Road in Europe 9 months before the RWC. We play all the top tier teams, plus the Barbarians. It's a great dress rehearsal for the Wallabies with Ireland, France, England and Wales all farkin tough ones.

World Cup squads were capped at 30 in 2011 however that was before the addition of an extra front rower. Minimum squad size 31 IMO

 

[daz]

I like this tour schedule. A year out from the RWC, it will (should) give us a pretty good idea of where we are sitting, and give Link a chance to identify and make whatever tweaks he needs in the following 10 months.

The fact is, if we consider ourselves real contenders for RWC15, we need to crack all these teams in their backyards, and do so without giving too much away.

This will be a hell of an interesting EOYT and I suspect we will all be watching this tour with a lot more of a critical eye than normal.