SCOTLAND plan to target one of Australia's best players to make sure they can win the quick ball they need if they are go have any hope of making history by becoming the first Scots team to win in Sydney.
Their game plan demands that they raise the pace and intensity of the game, but they have identified Michael Hooper, the Australian flanker, as a major obstacle. The solution, says Ryan Wilson, the back row, is simple: make him tackle – he can't interfere if he is on the ground.
"We've done a lot of stuff on contact and have been going through that sort of stuff, we will see what they throw at us," he said. "They have people like [Michael] Hooper, who is a nightmare at the breakdown but if you run at him with the ball, he is not as effective because he is having to tackle. It should be good.
"We are going in with a mindset that we want to play quick rugby. Whatever the way they play in contact, we still want to get quick ball."
Australia base a lot of their game around the speed and destructive quality of their back row and have drafted in George Smith, their former flanker, to help train the current side on breakdown work.
Scotland, however had already taken a similar approach, bringing Roddy Grant, the former Edinburgh captain who will join the club's coaching panel next season, to form a breakdown brains trust with Dan McFarland, the forwards coach.
"[Roddy] did quite a bit when we were in camp before coming out here," Wilson added. "He came in and worked with Dan doing a lot of analysis on the breakdown side of things.
"It is Dan's bread and butter – as well as line out and scrums. He loves the contact area, loves it. He just loves rugby in general, I think. They would have little things about each team and what they do. The different ways they like to slow down the breakdown."
Armed with that knowledge, Scotland think they are well equipped to counter whatever the Australians throw at them, with the overall goal being to claim the country's third win in Australia and first in Sydney.
"We had a sit down before we left to discuss what we wanted to get out of the tour," Wilson revealed. "The core group of players will probably go on to the World Cup. Look at it that way and if you start bonding people now and it will be effective when the Autumn Tests and Six Nations come round.
"The tour is a big part of building towards the World Cup. That is how we are looking at it, the summer tour is part of that, getting everything right, getting systems in place. And we want three wins.
"Going away for three and a half weeks together, you get to know people well. You look at teams like Saracens and they are so good at that. They build a squad from within and make sure everyone is close. We are getting all those bits in place."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here