Gloves off as Murrayfield prepares a horror for Rocky

Published on Friday 20 November 2009 22:53

THE last time he played at Murrayfield it felt as if the stadium was swaying to the chant of 'Rocky, Rocky, Rocky', so it is hardly a surprise that Australia captain Rocky Elsom feels quite comfortable on his return to the place.

That last occasion the blindside flanker was battering into bodies and charging down the Murrayfield turf was only in May this year, when his club, Leinster, beat Leicester in the Heineken Cup final. The 26-year-old had already savoured victory against Andy Robinson's Edinburgh in the competition with the Irish province and experienced beating Scotland at the ground in 2006, so his relaxed nature and wide smile was to be expected.

He acknowledged that there are unlikely to be the same chants as he walks out of the tunnel this evening, nor supporters dressed in 'Rocky' costumes to worship their hero, but if anything was ever to fluster the Wallaby rock that is most certainly not it.

"I wouldn't say I'll be the villain this time, but I don't think anyone will be wearing the costumes," he said. "I guess it will be a very different environment because that was very much a home crowd for us then. We know they can make a lot of noise here but we've had that the whole year.

"I played here in 2006 as well and that game went well – I don't know what it is about Murrayfield. I like playing here. We've been lucky to play at Twickenham and Croke Park, but this is definitely one of the better ones (stadia]. That helps (that I have always won] and makes you feel nice about coming here, but it does make a lot of sound. It's not always for you but it adds to the event. The last time I was here it went pretty well, but that was a beautiful dry day and we might not get the same this weekend."

The Wallabies trained in good weather yesterday on the Murrayfield artificial and main pitches, but aware that the forecast today is for heavy showers. The team was also forced into a late change with Digby Ioane, the Queensland centre, failing to recover from the shoulder injury he suffered against Ireland last week. The 30-year-old former League star Ryan Cross steps up, but the weather and changes failed to move Elsom.

Little flusters the Victorian, who hails from Melbourne but went to school up north at Nudgee College in Brisbane, quit union for Rugby League and the Bulldogs for two years, and then returned to join the Waratahs in Sydney.

He is a forthright individual on and off the park, and after becoming such a fixture in the Wallaby team that he started 31 of 32 Test matches from 2006-2008, he took a year out and a handsome financial reward to experience life in the north with Leinster, turning down Robinson and Edinburgh in the process. Next season, he returns to Super rugby, but in the colours of the ACT Brumbies, huge rivals of the Waratahs.

That time at Leinster might have ruled him out of Wallaby consideration, but as well as bringing a Heineken Cup winner's medal Elsom believes it opened his eyes to another world of rugby, and that kind of thing can help if today's weather turns nasty.

"I learned how to adapt a lot more (when I played in Ireland]. In Australia you play New Zealand and South Africa, who are very good sides and the competitions are very well-organised and have a pretty standard set of conditions for most games. But over here you have a fair bit of interference from different things and tournaments took you in different directions.

"If it rains, we won't make any wholesale changes to how we play."

Elsom's match-up with Alasdair Strokosch is a particularly appetising one, but the skipper added: "They (Scotland] are probably a more willing team than they've been in the past. You saw it in glimpses during the Six Nations, that there is a bit more going on in attack than they've had previously, and the scrum is strong and they definitely get stuck in."

But then asked whether he felt under pressure to avoid becoming the first Australia captain to lose to Scotland since 1982, there was an expected response. "We don't want to be a team that loses full stop, to anyone, but you have got to make that happen and that's what this will be about. They're pretty keen to get a win up and so are we, so it will be about who wants it more."