Party tweets have Wales smiling - Sports News - Fanatics - the world's biggest events

Party tweets have Wales smiling

David Beniuk 03/11/2010 07:31:30 PM Comments (0)

Wales coach Warren Gatland has been checking on the mindset of the Wallabies through website Twitter.

Gatland says his confidence the Australian side's celebrations after last weekend's breakthrough win over the All Blacks could affect their game in Cardiff has grown after looking at the site.

"To be honest they deserved to party and if they've had a late night then it's great and if they turn up here not quite focused then I'll be more than happy with that," he said.

"They thoroughly deserve whatever night they had out in Hong Kong and, having seen a couple of the Twitter sites and bits and pieces I'm sure they did have a good night."

Good night or not, the Wallabies are desperate to put back-to-back victories together against the injury-hit Welsh at Millennium Stadium on Saturday (Sunday morning AEDT).

The Dragons are equally keen to make amends for being "embarrassed up front" in last year's 33-12 loss to Australia.

As lock Alun Wyn Jones put it: "Sometimes it hurts more to rip the band aid off than it does at the time.

"The band aid's gone now so it's a case of the boots are back on, it's another year ... we can't dwell on that."

Wales are making no secret of their intention to target Australia's inconsistent scrum.

As Wallabies coach Robbie Deans suggested would be the case this week, the Dragons have studied England's scrummaging in the 21-20 victory in Sydney last June.

"It's psychological," Gatland said.

"(England's win) started from a very, very dominant scrum and at times that has been frail and everyone's aware of that.

"There's other times it has been fairly solid and it depends who Robbie picks really."

The Welsh are also aware they need to "do a job" on rising Australian flanker David Pocock, who came of age on last year's grand slam tour.

"He's extremely physical, effective there, he caused us a huge amount of problems last year and we need to make sure that we look after that area," Gatland said.

"There's nobody better in the world at the moment than Pocock at turnovers at the breakdown."

Injury-hit Wales haven't managed to claim a southern hemisphere scalp since their win over Australia in Cardiff nearly two years ago.

Gatland said they were yet to decide whether to seek Australia's agreement on closing the Millennium Stadium roof.

With rain forecast, an open roof could slow the Wallabies' scintillating attack, although Gatland insists his side will play open rugby as well.

Brought to you by AAP AAP © 2024 AAP

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