Australia coach Robbie Deans is preparing for a battle of wills and wits against fired-up France today after the tourists were stung by last week’s bruising defeat in Sydney.
The depleted French sank to their heaviest margin of defeat in Australia when they conceded four tries in a 34-13 mauling, triggering a swathe of team changes for the Brisbane match.
French coach Marc Lievremont brought in seven new faces and made a total of 10 positional changes in response with the express purpose of taking the game to the Australians.
Deans, in only his third match in charge of the Wallabies, senses the French will do all in their power to redress what went wrong in Sydney.
“It will be very different this week,” the New Zealander told a match-eve press conference yesterday.
“The French have mixed up their combinations and as they have indicated they have a sense of annoyance at their first experience and you only have to look at history to see how French teams respond under those circumstances,” Deans said. “But we have motivations of our own, so it will be a battle of wills and a battle of wits.”
French hardman Sebastien Chabal this week urged his teammates to be more competitive in the contact area and ask questions of the Australian forwards.
“I think the French have indicated they are going to be pretty physical, they have a 5-2 split [forwards/backs] on their reserves bench,” Deans said.
“It’s pretty evident that they didn’t enjoy their first outing and they are going to have to get on a plane at the end of this one, so I would suggest that it’s a given that they will come out and be really physical and aggressive and challenge us. We’re going to have to meet that physical challenge first up,” he said.
Lievremont has had limited time to turn things around this week but is talking of his team not leaving Australia with any regrets.
“We hope we are resolute enough to compete with this excellent Australian team and to win,” Lievremont said yesterday.
“This is our last Test of the season, we don’t want to finish the tour with any kind of regrets. It has been a long time since the French have beaten Australia here,” he said.
The French are likely to target are debutant winger Lachlan Turner, a replacement for injured Lote Tuqiri, and young lock Dean Mumm, who has been entrusted with the lineout calls in the absence of senior jumper Nathan Sharpe.
“It’s a challenging area regardless of who you’ve got there and the other guys [forwards] are pretty well versed and our preparation is such that they all need to have their heads around it,” Deans said. “Obviously, Dean wouldn’t have been anticipating he would be calling the lineouts from the first minute, but he’s got the background and he’ll be fine.”
Deans said 21-year-old Turner’s biggest challenge will be settling into his first Test.
“He’s got the jersey and the opportunity to play and the important thing for him will be to master his emotions so that he is himself, because as soon as he can settle and get on with it the better he will be,” he said.
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