Wallabies legend John Eales has heaped praise on coach Dave Rennie after their string of impressive victories during the Rugby Championship, believing they are on the right track for success.
Rennie and the Wallabies will name their squad later in the week for the Spring Tour, which is set to kick off against Japan on October 23.
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They enter the tour with a four-match winning streak with wins over South Africa and Argentina, with Eales lauding his influence both on and off the field.
“I think Dave is a very composed coach. He has a great track record with what he did in New Zealand with the Chiefs, bringing them to their first titles and you speak to anyone coached by him and they speak so highly of him both as a skills coach but also as a mentor who creates a great culture,” Eales told RSN’s Breakfast Club.
“What we’re seeing in the Wallabies is he’s bringing the experienced guys back but he’s also nurturing some good young guys as well.
“They’re playing a game where they are not making any excuses when they don’t do well and they’re working hard."
Despite a series sweep to the All Blacks, the Hall of Famer believes there were plenty of positives in those matches to show they are closer than the scoreline gap suggested.
“Whilst the performance against the All Blacks wasn’t great, they actually did some really good things, they were a lot closer from a contact perspective than the scoreline suggests,” he believes.
“That’ll mean not much to fans who just want them to win but actually they’re the clues that eventually lead to success I believe.
“If you look either side of the All Blacks series and look at the French series, they were excellent. They were then better again against South Africa and backed that up against Argentina so there’s a lot of things to be positive about.”
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Eales was recently named as one of the six mentors as part of Sport Australia Hall of Fame's Scholarship and Mentoring Program, alongside the likes of Dawn Fraser, Stephanie Rice and Matt Mitcham.
He will link up with Top-20 moguls competitor Cooper Woods, with the program seeing sporting legends paired with athletes from a wide variety of sports.
Whilst Eales admitted he isn't a very good skier, he believes his wide-ranging experience will be invaluable ahead of a potential 2022 Winter Olympics berth for Woods.
“I’m really excited, throughout my career I had some wonderful mentors not just from the sporting arenas whether they been friends, from business or from whenever so it’s a fun experience on both sides of the fence and there’s no doubt I’ll learn as much from Cooper (Woods) as he’ll learn from me,” he said on the mentorship program.
“…I’m not a very good skier and that’s probably what makes me a better mentor for Cooper. I think even if you look at skiing and Rugby and there’s not much in common in some respects aside from both being winter sports, I think both have the physical and mental challenges and it’s those types of things I’m looking forward to talk about.”
