The Waratahs are entering Super Rugby Pacific with a defence-first approach as they seek to avoid another 'embarrassing' season.
The NSW-based club got their season off to a perfect start last week, overcoming the Brumbies 24-14 in Bowral.
Whilst it's just a trial, conceding just two tries across 90 minutes, one from broken play whilst in attack, it shows a great focus on defence under new coach Darren Coleman.
“I think just putting a priority in defence. It’s one thing to talk about defences being important but you have to time into it and everyone buying into it. The best thing DC’s done as a defensive unit is using his voice to talk about how strong he is about defence,” assistant coach Jason Gilmore told reporters.
“It’s certainly in our vocabulary every day that we talk about in team meetings and working hard on it. We’ve allocated a fair portion of the pre-season to make sure the defence is ready to go.
“We got pretty narrow with our defence (last year), particularly through the Trans-Tasman. You’ve also got to have (the) quality of athlete as well. As much as the boys fought hard last year when you are pulling club guys in, they’re just not conditioned to play Super Rugby so it doesn’t matter what element of the game it is.
“We’ve certainly changed some things in our system because we can’t repeat what we did last year.”
Gilmore concedes they can't afford a repeat of 2021 as they enter the inaugural Pacific campaign, set to begin their campaign against the Fijian Drua on February 18.
This comes with extra motivation from what he labelled an 'embarrassing' season, fuelling the side heading into the future.
“It’s motivation for us. It was pretty embarrassing last year so there’s a bit of fuel that sits with you over the off-season that drives you," he said.
“To get experience, you have to play football games. You can be young but if you are not playing, you won’t get experience. It wasn’t ideal last year to go through that but they’ve banked another 10-12 Super Rugby games, they know what’s happening.
“I think the biggest thing is everyone at the club don't want a repeat of last year so we’re pretty motivated.
“You don’t want to repeat what happened last year. It was pretty embarrassing, none of us were proud about what happened last year, so I think the motivation for us as a club is we can see our way out of it.”
The Waratahs will face a host of Shute Shield sides at Eric Tweedale Stadium on February 5 before facing the Reds the following week to round out preparations.
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They will likely do so without Will Harrison (shoulder), who is expected to join Wallabies captain Michael Hooper on the sidelines for a couple of weeks.
It alleviates a potential selection headache facing the coaching staff, with Ben Donaldson emerging as the favourite for the flyhalf position as they trial Harrison across the backline.
As the pair compete with Tane Edmed for spots in the 23, Gilmore believes whatever happens, they need to pick and stick to build combinations.
“Willy’s been playing a bit of 12 and 15 the last couple of weeks, not an ideal time to get injured coming into the round one. Obviously working on combinations, performance is a key indicator of selection so it doesn’t help to get selected,” he added.
“The good thing with him is we know what he can do. It’s not like he’s a stranger to us.
"We’re pretty lucky we have the three guys here. You want to get your best footballers into the backline so for all three of those boys, you can probably only squeeze two in. Obviously, Will was used a bit at fullback last year, Donno has played a bit of fullback.
“What we don’t want with those two boys is them chopping and changing constantly in positions because flyhalf is a crucial position to lead a team around the park and fullback has its own skills.”
