By Nick Mulvenney
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia captain Harry Wilson said sending James Slipper home a winner after his record 140th test was a major motivation for the team ahead of their Rugby Championship test against New Zealand on Saturday.
Slipper, 35, will surpass George Gregan as Australia’s most-capped player when he comes off the bench as a replacement prop at Stadium Australia in the first of back-to-back tests against the All Blacks.
“It’s a massive motivation for us this weekend, he is a great servant to our game and he’s a great mate to everyone in the team,” number eight Wilson told reporters outside the Sydney Opera house on Friday.
“He’s been such a good person for Australian rugby and I really hope we can do him proud tomorrow.”
Wilson said the players had made up 140th test T-shirts and Slipper had been showered with congratulatory messages from everyone from former Wallabies team mates to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The hard truth, however, is that Slipper is unlikely to celebrate what would be only a fifth victory in 33 career test encounters with the All Blacks on Saturday.
Although New Zealand are coming off two losses against the world champion Springboks, they performed pretty well in those games while the Wallabies went down 67-27 to Argentina in their last outing two weeks ago.
Wilson said the team had learned plenty of lessons from that record drubbing and were looking forward to chasing a win that would keep alive their hopes of wresting back the Bledisloe Cup from the All Blacks for the first time in more than two decades.
Consistent with the philosophy of coach Joe Schmidt, however, Wilson said the Wallabies would be focused only on the process, not the outcomes.
“There’ll be a little bit more on the line with the Bledisloe Cup, so we’ve got to use that for motivation,” he added.
“But for us, it’s just winning the moment in front of us. So we’re not thinking about the big picture at the end.”
Australia would need to beat the All Blacks on Saturday and again next week in Wellington to win back the Bledisloe Cup.
New Zealand captain Scott Barrett said it was a trophy that meant a huge amount to his team and they were taking nothing for granted against the wounded Wallabies.
“Argentina at home, when they get their tails up, they’re a top-quality team,” Barrett said.
“We’ve been on the receiving end of a couple of losses and we’re certainly hungry. I think there’s probably going to be a similar level of hunger from that Australian team.”
(Reporting by Nick Mulvenney; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
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