Australia reveal Nations Championship target and ‘squeeky clean’ plan for Scotland Murrayfield clash
Discipline key as Wallabies aim to bounce back from England defeat
Australia are targeting a top-three finish in the Nations Championship’s southern conference and know a win over Scotland at Murrayfield will go a long way to realising that ambition.
The Wallabies have won just one of their four matches so far and went down heavily to England at Twickenham last week.
They’re sitting in fourth place, behind Argentina, but a victory on Sunday would lift them above the Pumas ahead of the last round of pool games which will see the Aussies face Wales while Argentina take on France.
Harry Wilson, the Australia captain, watched France’s stunning win over South Africa on Friday and believes the new tournament is coming to the boil ahead of Finals Weekend at Twickenham at the end of the month.
Finals Weekend will be an unbelievable feast of rugby
“I think as this tournament goes on, the games are going to get better and better, building up to the Finals Weekend,” said Wilson.
“You can see every team wants to be in as high a place as they can going into that Finals Weekend and we're no different.
“We really want to try to be in the top three and the only way we get that is by strong results in the next two games. Then going into that Finals Weekend, it's going to be an unbelievable weekend of rugby.”
Twickenham will stage six cross-hemisphere games from November 27-29, with each northern team playing off against the southern side which finishes in the equivalent position.
“A year out of a World Cup to have a weekend like that, it's going to be an unbelievable spectacle,” added Wilson.
The Wallabies No 8 said the team had been hurt by the manner of the 45-22 loss to England last Sunday but that it was now time to “go out and do Australia proud”.
‘Really impose our game on Scotland’
“[We] definitely had a tough review from the weekend, as we needed to,” said Wilson. “We've had a few tough reviews in a row and now we want to really bounce back. We're challenging the group to bring some edge this weekend from minute one and really impose our game onto the Scots.
“Everyone was definitely hurting on Monday. I guess we gave it a day for everyone to lick their wounds, but then the moment we hit the training park Tuesday, end of the meetings, we just wanted to be better this week.”
Australia lost prop Angus Bell to the sin-bin during the first half against England and Wilson has stressed the importance of keeping 15 players on the pitch at Murrayfield.
“We don't want to be getting cards,” said the skipper. “We know how much cards can swing a game.
“It's happened to us this year and we want to paint the right pictures, we want to be squeaky clean and we still want to go get at them but there's ways to do it and there's ways to do it legally which is what we need.
“We know to beat Scotland we need 15 players on the park and when we want to bring that edge, bring that physicality, that doesn't mean anything around the head. That means you can bring physicality by a great low chop with the person over the top and slow ball that way. So that's definitely how we're going to look at it because we want 15 players on the park for 80 minutes.”
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