Wallabies’ bold prediction ahead of second Rugby Championship Test with Springboks

Veteran Wallabies front-row James Slipper admitted that they are desperate to bounce back when they face the Springboks in Perth on Saturday but believes they can achieve that goal.

It was a forgetful day at the office for Australia in their Rugby Championship opener in Brisbane last week as they came off second best in most departments en route to a 33-7 defeat against the world champions.

Slipper admitted that they had a tough review of that encounter as the Springboks dominated from the outset.

The Boks raced into a 21-0 lead at half-time and the Wallabies conceded four penalties after just first eight minutes and missed 13 tackles inside the opening quarter.

‘Pretty disappointing review’

“It’s been a pretty disappointing review on the players’ behalf. We look at the game-plan itself and it probably wasn’t executed well enough by the players going into the game,” Slipper told reporters.

“We missed the jump there in the first half and we were under a lot of pressure going into half-time.”

Slipper revealed that they deviated from their game-plan which meant they were chasing the game for long periods, although they.

“The game-plan was set, the accuracy around delivering that gameplan, our performance in that wasn’t great,” he said.

“We don’t want to see kicks uncontested, we want to see it hit grass and it’s not just the kick game, it was the set piece as well, the way we were tackling, our inability to win the collision at times really hurt us as well.

“There’s plenty of areas to the game we just weren’t accurate in delivering so what we know is if we get certain go the areas right, we can create a lot of opportunities.”

Despite that effort, the 35-year-old is confident they can turn the tables on the Boks this weekend.

“One thing in rugby is one week’s performance can easily be turned around,” he added.

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“We get to play the same team twice in a row in this competition so the ability for us to change the performance is easier in that circumstance but at the end of the day, you’ve just got to perform on the day when the pressure’s on.”

🇦🇺 Lukhan Salakai-Loto responded to claims that the Springboks' much-changed lineup for the Perth Test is disrespect to the Wallabies. #AUSvRSA #RugbyChampionship pic.twitter.com/CVSHMTPSgw

— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) August 14, 2024

Meanwhile, Wallabies lock Lukhan Salakaia-Loto is not bothered by the 10 changes made by Springboks head coach Rassie Erasmus for the clash in Perth and insists the world champions are not disrespecting his team.

Erasmus has said that his mass alterations are not a slap in the Wallabies’ face and Salakaia-Loto insists they don’t have any issues with the changes made by the Boks.

“Look, it’s no disrespect at all,” he told AAP. “They’ve still got 14 World Cup winners in their squad.

“Their depth is a big reason why they’re back-to-back champs.

‘Much better performance’ needed

“The challenge for us is to come in and put in a much better performance than last week.

“Their game plan hasn’t changed over the past eight years. The challenge is how do you stop that, and can you stop that?”

Salakaia-Loto echoed Slipper’s sentiments regarding the Wallabies’ performance in Brisbane and said that result shocked their players after they made good start to their 2024 Test campaign with back-to-back wins over Wales and a victory against Georgia.

“As players, we weren’t good enough,” Salakaia-Loto said.

“There were definitely some lessons learned. It’s been a tough week for us.

“We’re looking to do more of our game plan this week and put in a performance our fans can be proud of. We’ve just got to do our jobs better, individually and collectively.

“The responsibility is on us as players. We’ve got the right framework and game plan to take it to these guys.”

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