Expect the Waratahs to be more physical in Super Rugby next year. They have already put in the hard yards and now they are putting in the hard hits.
Everything was contact at training at Centennial Park today. The ruck work was fierce but there was a bit of science in it too, as to who should do what to whom, and when they should do it.
Matt Lucas in combat gear today
Then there was one-on-one goal-line attacking and defending, wrestling matches, and there was even a boxing match.
Waratahs’ coach Michael Cheika worked hard early last year on changing the rugby culture of the Tahs and getting an attacking ethic in their play. In recent sessions they looked more advanced defensively to me than at the same time last year, and more forceful in their work.
Cheika agreed: the players already knew his attacking focus from the 2013 season; so he has brought forward the harder stuff for 2014.
Obviously because we know how I operate, at the team’s training we’re at a much higher level of intensity, earlier.
Will Skelton last year
There was a hodge-podge of players: contracted fellows not away with the Wallabies, Extended Playing Squad [EPS] members, who are usually the first to replace injured contracted players, and unpaid club players invited to train with the Waratahs.
Cheika is fostering rivalry within the group. At training last week he berated the players for not concentrating, because they were in competition with the blokes standing next to them and should be proving they were better than they were.
He was right: contracted players were competing for starting spots; EPS players had to prove themselves be worthy of moving up, and even the invited players could emulate Will Skelton who was an invited player twelve months ago, but ended up playing Super Rugby and spent 80 minutes on the park against the British and Irish Lions.
It was up to them.
Sam Talakai – good wrestler
The coach said that he still had one position to fill in the contracted group and one in the EPS, and most likely the spots would go to a prop and a hooker. In that regard hooker Hugh Roach (Eastwood), THP Sam Talakai (Sydney University) and THP Tim Metcher (Southern Districts) were at training today, amongst others, but Cheika is keeping his cards close to his chest.
Cheika said that he still had no details to share about a Super Rugby development competition, let alone a national club tournament, as they were ARU matters, but he warned that it would be a mistake to interfere with the Shute Shield in Sydney.
He had not much to say about the Wallabies curfew kerfuffle, nor the involvement in it of the Waratahs’ skipper, Dave Dennis.
Dave Dennis – excellent
Dave Dennis is an excellent captain here. An excellent player, an excellent man.
The punishment is relative to the coach. Every coach has his ways.
Ewen [McKenzie] has decided to make a punishment. That’s fair enough. That’s what he decides. The players have to wear that because they’re in that environment.
Kurtley Beale was sporting a nasty looking scar from his shoulder operation but was recovering earlier than expected.
Kurtley’s charting well and he’s doing a lot of good work. He’s come back into the football side of things a lot earlier actually than we thought he would.
When asked, Cheika said it would be great to see Folau and Beale playing together. Star signing Beale would be fully integrated in skills work by the end of the year, get into contact work in January and be ready for the first trial match in February.
Beale told me that he was weighing-in at 90kgs and didn’t want to get below that because tacklers were getting bigger and hitting harder.
And who won the wrestling contest?
The winner was Sam Talakai, who toured with the Tahs to Argentina and who got on the park for the team against the British and Irish Lions in June ( but missed the opportunity to tackle his cousin, Mako Vunipola, who had been subbed earlier.)
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