Skipper Michael Hooper says the Wallabies are not in siege mode and shot down a suggestion from former Test coach Robbie Deans that whinging about referees will hurt their World Cup campaign.
Ahead of the Wallabies third pool game in Oita on Saturday afternoon, against Uruguay, Hooper fronted media for the first time since the captain and coach Michael Cheika spoke at length on frustrations with refereeing after Australia’s loss to Wales.
That came after Reece Hodge was suspended for three weeks for a high shot in the opening game against Fiji, which Cheika later said fuelled a “us versus everyone” mood in the Wallabies camp.
In a column on New Zealand website Stuff.co.nz, Deans gave a subtle dig at Cheika, by writing about Australia’s post-match focus on “problems such as the refereeing.”
"The subliminal messaging that occurs when a coach blames elements that are outside a player and team's control is unhelpful for future games,” Deans wrote.
Asked whether Deans’ theory was a potential issue in the Wallabies’ team, Hooper said the outside noise did not reflect their internal focus.
"There's a lot said in the news but it's not stuff that's echoed in our team room, in our changing room,” Hooper said.
"Like I said to an earlier question, my focus has been on what we can control.
"I probably would agree with that (Deans) but you'd have to know what's said behind closed doors to actually know what we're talking about.”
Hooper had earlier rejected a question about whether the Wallabies had deliberately set up a us-versus-them mentality at the World Cup, after the Hodge incident and Wales refereeing drama.
"We haven't taken that tact at all. We've been focusing on what we can control. Yeah there's been a lot of stuff said but we can't control that,” he said.
"We've been focusing on what we can control and that's very much been the point of this week, is to think how can we improve on last week's performance, what can we take from Fiji game into that Wales game, now into this game.
"You can't spend your time thinking about, on everything, you've got to narrow a focus and particularly after a loss where we're at, we've got to have a narrow focus and have a critical mindset on what is important.”
Hooper admitted he was frustrated post-Wales, but only because he wanted to win and that they'd came so close, with opportunities missed at the end.
"Still thought about a lot of those moments during the week but now we're under 24 hours away from playing this next one, I've moved on totally, I'm ready for tomorrow, bring it on,” he said.
"So happy I get another chance to run out, get to run out in this jersey. It's going to be great, arvo footy, looked slippery the other night with the ABs out here and Canada, going to be a good challenge.”
The heat and humidity of Oita, which is the southern most World Cup venue, proved to be an issue the All Blacks-Canada game on Wednesday night, with both sides dropping plenty of ball due to the sweaty conditions.
Several other games have seen similar handling problems, and some sides have taken to training with soaped-up balls to simulate the slipperiness.
The Wallabies haven’t done that but they got through plenty of humid training in Noumea, and Hooper said the simple goal was to “just catch it” and “to keep the ball off the chest” to reduce the amount of sweat on the ball.
Departing Wallabies players and arriving New Zealand players caught up in Haneda airport on Thursday afternoon, as they swapped the plane to Oita, and Hooper indicated they’d chatted about the muggy conditions at a stadium with a roof.
"We'll know more tomorrow...the weather could change,” Hooper said.
“Midweek it was really still from all reports and no wind moving through so it made it quite humid in the stadium. Perhaps that's Why there was a bit of slippery ball around.”
After watching them beat Fiji, Hooper said the Wallabies were expecting the Uruguayans to be highly physical and to bring a good kick-chase game.
"Breakdown, they’ll come hard there,” Hooper said.
"They have really good kicking halves, they kick a lot and are good at contesting those areas. So we will have to be behind and around the ball and those sort of areas.
"They also, physically, particularly in the Fiji game, were very strong. We played the Fijian team already and we know how physical they are and they did a great job in holding that. So we are prepared for that to be a massive area of the game, both in attack and defence.”
