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Waratahs focus away from Wallabies selection drama as their Super Rugby season hangs by a thread

Adam Ashley-Cooper. (Photo by Anthony Au-Yeung/Getty Images)

Waratahs veteran Adam Ashley-Cooper says his team won’t get caught up in the ongoing availability of their Wallabies and are focusing solely on beating the Brumbies on Saturday night.

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The Waratahs go into the Super Rugby match against the Australian conference leaders with the knowledge that even if they win to keep alive their hopes of making the play-offs, they may be without a swag of stars for the last round clash with the Highlanders in Invercargill, which is also must-win.

NSW still have to rest Sekope Kepu, Rob Simmons, Michael Hooper, Kurtley Beale and Bernard Foley as part of an agreement with Wallabies management in the World Cup year, but Waratahs coach Daryl Gibson says they will play this week at Bankwest Stadium.

Ashley-Cooper felt the drama surrounding sacked teammate Israel Folau this season had taught them to focus inwards.

“I think when it’s out of your hands and out of your control is not to have any feeling towards it and just deal with it,” the centre said on Monday.

“We’ve shown enough resolve this year with a lot of external stuff that’s been happening, so that’s just another area that we won’t allow to distract our game or our preparation.”

The Waratahs showed their resolve with a gutsy 20-15 win over the Melbourne Rebels last round, with Ashley-Cooper enjoying a blossoming centre partnership Lalakai Foketi.

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The 24-year-old got the start following a long-term knee injury to Karmichael Hunt and earned praise from Ashley-Cooper.

“It’s obviously disappointing to lose Karmichael but I think Lalakai’s done a really good job to come in and fill his boots,” Ashley-Cooper said.

“K (Hunt) was very solid for us in the midfield in defence and obviously with his ball carries, but Lalakai’s come in and brought a new aspect.

“He’s given us a bit of X-factor in that ball-playing option and changed up the dynamic of our attack in the midfield which has been great for us.”

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Ashley-Cooper, 35, said the match wouldn’t be his last Super Rugby match on home soil, hinting he intended to play on for another season.

AAP

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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