Wales vs Australia - THE Preview

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Wales vs Australia – THE Preview

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Well on rugby blogs and forums all over the world people are writing their preview of the big game, I wanted a turn at it!

So it happens like last year, we get to the end of the Autumn Internationals having won the games we were expected to and losing the games we expected to. The question now comes – is this a game we expect to win or expect to lose? In the last 3 Autumn International games we have won 2 and drawn one. But in the World Cup and tour over there we have lost all 3.

A look at form might be more revealing. The Aussies were poor at best during the Tri-Nations, but then we weren’t all that good ourselves during the 6 Nations. This autumn, like us, they lost to New Zealand. But they also drew with Ireland (who played poorly) and lost to Scotland, which in my opinion takes some doing.

Game Aspects

But having said all that there are a lot of worrying signs. Firstly the Aussie backline is young, but when it clocks, and it looks to me that it will do, it is going to take a lot of stopping. Wallabies

More worrying, for me anyway, is the scrum and the breakdown. Australia have somehow gone from complete jokes in the scrum through to World beaters in what has to be record time. There power there will be a trouble yet again to Paul James who is not a tight head prop. Whilst some say he has done well there I think Wales have been lucky not to get penalized off the park – a ref who knows his scrums (if such mythical beasts exist) could do for us.

The breakdown is more of a concern. The recent change of Andy Powell moving to 8 to replace the injured Ryan jones, and Dan Lydiate coming on, has giving us more balance (even if it is more by accident than design). But an inexperienced 6 vs Rocky Elsom sounds like suicide, and an 8 who is useless at the breakdown so won’t back him up means we could well be struggling there.

Our backs should have too much for the, they are quick and have good hands but have struggled against the kiwi and bokke aggression in defence and attack… and our physicality there should be telling. Their lineout has also been far from the best whilst ours has greatly improved with Luke Charteris playing and Matthew Rees learning how to throw in.

Until Ryan’s injury I was confident, predicting us by 4. Now? too close to call imo, but no more than a couple of points either way.

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